Universities

Fight for freedom of protest, organisation and speech on campuses

This is a draft statement put together by activists who are looking to set up a campaign around free speech and the right to organise on university and college campuses. Get in touch if you’re interested or to tell us what you think. Email Monty Shield , Queen Mary University of London left activist. “Freedom is always freedom for those who dissent. The essence of political freedom depends on all the invigorating, beneficial, and cleansing effects of dissenters.” – Rosa Luxemburg This campaign will fight to defend and extend free speech and the right to organise on campus, which are currently...

Fight job and wage cuts at Manchester University

Forty-three job cuts have been announced at UMC Limited, the subsidiary wholly owned by the University of Manchester which provides all the catering and food on campus. This company is an outsourcing venture used by the University to employ catering staff on zero-hours contracts, free of any of the protections of in-house employment. The University raked in a cool £46 million in profit last year, yet now 60 out of UMC’s 283 staff have been informed that their jobs are at risk. As we saw last term in IT, management are trying to force these cuts through under the guise of “voluntary” severance...

Why UCL students are on rent strike

Kasandra Tomaszewska, a first-year University College London (UCL) history student, rent striker, and activist with the UCL Cut the Rent Campaign, spoke to Solidarity . I got involved in the rent strike very randomly and late in the process. My roommate gave me some leaflets. I didn’t get very involved but thought “it is actually a very good idea, and if it starts I will join”. Then the rent strike started and I joined. After a week or so I took part in an interview, then another one, because they needed people to speak to the public and I was willing to do it . I got in touch with organisers...

Students occupy Sheffield University to fight HE reforms

Tanju Çakar, an activist taking part in a student occupation of Sheffield University, spoke to Solidarity . We wanted to put some demands on the university: for the university to not comply with Prevent; non-compliance with the Teaching Excellence Framework and the other reforms in the HE green paper; secure contracts and an end to low pay for casual staff. The HE Green Paper that the government has issued means potential tuition fee rises, allowing private firms to cut into higher education, and the TEF will force teachers to compete with each other. We have a similar framework in place...

Industrial news in brief

Workers at the UK′s train operating companies are facing a huge attack on their pensions due to government legislation that ends the contracting-out of the Second State Pension. The legislation means higher National Insurance contributions for both employees (1.4%) and employers (3.4%). The government has also passed legislation to help employers out with this — by allowing them to carry out annual raids on occupational pensions schemes, without even having to consult with scheme trustees. You might think rail unions would mount a robust defence against any attempts by industry employers to...

Oppose Prevent, but don't ally with Cage

The Daily Mail has condemned the National Union of Students over its links with the organisation Cage (formerly Cageprisoners), run by former Guantanamo Bay detainee Moazzam Begg. The Daily Mail (7 January) targetted NUS Vice-President Shelly Asquith, criticising her for speaking out in opposition to the government’s Prevent strategy — the government’s scheme ostensibly aimed at stopping young people being “radicalised” by “extremists” but which is aimed exclusively at Islamic fundamentalism and Islamism and has is linked to increased state surveillance and repression on the grounds of...

Industrial news in brief

Lancashire County Council is on the verge of making sweeping cuts. The cuts include over 2,500 job losses (compulsory and voluntary). Around 40 of the 75 libraries in Lancashire will close, as will 5 out of the 10 council run museums, all subsidised bus routes, and numerous other front line services will be cut. Since 2008 local Lancashire services have been repeatedly cut. Between January 2014 and October 2015 1,100 jobs have gone. In February cuts of £152 million over three years were announced. In November the council revised up the level of cuts as the Tory government announced the...

Students: get ready to strike!

In early November, students from 110 college campuses across the United States rallied, protested and walked-out over rising student debt. They demanded free education, debt cancellation, and a $15 per hour minimum wage for workers on their campuses. They pointed to Obama’s recent comments, that the $80 billion bill for the US prison system, would more than cover eliminating tuition fees and student debt for all public colleges and universities. This month also marks five years since Millbank, when thousands of students marched on and occupied Conservative Party HQ, in protest of the tuition...

Germaine Greer, student politics and the left

To a casual observer, it might seem incongruous that a campaign to prevent a prominent second wave feminist speaking on a university campus would be led by the women’s officer of the student union. But this is typical of the world we live in, and of student politics in the English-speaking world in particular. The second wave feminist concerned is Germaine Greer, who was invited by the University of Cardiff in the UK to speak on the topic of “Women and power: the lessons of the 20th century”. The campus women’s officer, Rachael Melhuish, initiated a petition calling for the university to...

Tories push for free market universities

Less than 48 hours after ten thousand students hit the streets calling for free education and living grants for all on 4 November, Universities Minister Jo Johnson announced the long-awaited Green Paper on Higher Education. If the proposals become law, it would mean nothing short of the end of public higher education. This Green Paper follows neatly on from the fee hike of 2010. £9,000 tuition fees ushered in a new type of education system. Students have to make astronomical investments in their education. Rather than education being about a love of learning, or for the social good, going to...

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