UCL staff to go on eight-day strike

Source: Wikimedia Commons

Margareta Durovcikova reports on the upcoming UCU strike, which will begin Monday November 25th.

Sixty universities across the UK, including UCL, have announced strike action commencing Monday 25th November. On November 5th, the University and College Union (UCU) announced an eight-day strike, following two votes in which UCU members called for strike action over pay and working conditions. The strike will last until December 4th and will disrupt lectures.

Legal disputes over pay and working conditions have motivated UCU members to vote in favour of industrial action. Of those who voted, 79% of UCU members backed strikes over pensions and 74% backed strikes over equality, workloads and casualisation. Of UCL members, over 80% voted in favour of strike action and action short of strike. 

The UCU is disputing changes to the Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS) pension scheme, which could see UCU members lose hundreds of thousands of pounds in retirement despite paying more into their pensions. They are also protesting universities’ failure to improve working conditions.

Sean Wallis, president of the UCL branch of UCU tells Pi Media that despite universities profiting, staff have suffered pay cuts: “The universities are booming from student tuition fees. They made a surplus of £2bn just last year. But staff have not benefited: the money has gone into large building projects, new campuses and the like. Meanwhile staff pay has been cut by 20% since 2009. Women are still paid 15% less than men across the sector, [and] on top of this black academics have a 12% further cut, disabled staff [an] 8.7% [cut] and so on.”

He said staff will also be striking because of UCL’s dubious contracting practices: “Precarious 'uber'-style contracts are common. For example, at UCL, despite HR agreeing with the Students’ Union and UCU to put postgrad teaching assistants (PhD students mostly) on proper contracts, this commitment has mysteriously disappeared this year. This 'casualisation' means that 100,000 staff are on fixed-term contracts of employment and another 70,000 on 'uber'-style 'atypical' contracts including zero-hours contracts, 'as and when' and bogus self-employment.”

It is unclear what the strike will look like. It could involve refusing to do anything beyond one’s contract, refusing to cover for absent colleagues, and not rescheduling lost lectures. Sean Wallis, says: “Members are being asked to take eight days of strike action and to not reschedule lectures that would normally take place on those days.”

This could affect a number of students who will lose teaching hours, but many support UCL staff strike action anyway. Matthew Lee, a third-year SSEES student, tells Pi: “I 100% support the strikes. […] what is good for our staff at university is also good for us as students.”

He adds that while students will understandably be angry about losing contact hours, they should not be angry at staff: “[…] students need to direct this anger at [those] responsible, senior university management and the government, who are pushing through the reforms and decisions that have caused these strikes. The best way for students to minimise the disruption is by organising to support striking staff so they win all their demands as soon as possible!”

This view is echoed by Philosophy of Education Master’s student, Talin Saghdasaryan, who says: “As a student, I understand that many of us feel like our money is wasted when we don't get to go to class while the lecturers are striking. But I do think that despite that we should support the strikes, because I think the fees we pay are part of the problem. […] The immediate impact on the students might not be particularly enjoyable, but in the long term I think we would all benefit from being at an institution that treats its staff more justly and fairly, because that treatment affects us as well.”

However, not all students agree. A third-year Psychology student tells Pi News: “I will be crossing the picket line. I’m behind schedule on my dissertation, which is due in March, and [I] have to collect data — which I can only do at UCL. While I understand and respect staff’s decision to protest, I simply have to work on my dissertation.”

However, according to Wallis, when students join forces with university staff, strikes end sooner. He tells Pi: “We are not ‘picketing out’ students. So, we are not saying to students that they should consider it part of their moral obligation to stay out. It is a free choice. But it is also wise to say that the more we can unite to forcefully put pressure on the employers to resolve this whole question, the more likely that it will end in everyone's best interest.”

His advice to students is to support staff: “I think it is in students' best interest not to come onto campus during the strike. You can work at home, you can go to other colleges which are not (yet) on strike — and you can also join us on the picket lines, the teach-outs and the demonstrations.”

The current strikes are to hit universities less than two years after a 14-day strike 2018, when staff at 61 universities protested changes in the USS pension scheme.

According to Sean Wallis, students were successful in getting tuition refunds from UCL after strikes in 2018, and should do so this year too: “We support students making a claim to the university against any reduction in teaching that they suffered — there was a court case last year that ruled that the university was liable.”