UCL Students’ Union refuses to support staff strikes

In a statement released on 20 October, the Students’ Union announced that they have taken ‘the difficult decision not to support the potential upcoming strike action’ held by the University and College Union (UCU). 

Photo by Sean Wallis on Flickr

The Students’ Union cited ‘disruption to [students’] lives and education’ over the past two years as their reason for not supporting the strikes. They state that ‘students have suffered loneliness, isolation, stress, financial hardship and many other issues’ because of interruptions caused by the pandemic and previous industrial action. The pandemic triggered a year and a half of remote learning, and the current ‘blended learning’ approach, whilst tuition fees remain the same.

The proposed strikes come in response to possible cuts to pension benefits. Such strikes may sound familiar to current third and fourth years,  who missed a total of almost two months of teaching between 2018 and 2020. The 2018 strikes spread over 14 strike days between February and March and were followed by another 14 days in late 2019. The most recent strikes were held over two weeks between 20 February and 13 March 2020, only cut short due to the pandemic.

The statement stresses that whilst the Union supports the UCU’s cause, they must ask that they ‘consider other ways of settling [the] dispute through constructive negotiation or other tactics which do not mean our students will have their education compromised’. They call for ‘employers such as UCL to cooperate and settle [the] dispute with trade unions’.