education

On June 12th, cleaners working for ISS at the School of Oriental & African Studies (SOAS) in London were called to a meeting by management. The cleaners were “processed” by immigration officials who detained nine of them as “illegal immigrants”. It was perhaps no coincidence that a picket of SOAS’ governing body demanding the reinstatement of victimised SOAS UNISON Branch Chair José Stalin Bermudez, who had been prominent in organising cleaners, had been called for that morning.

Those detained were denied union representation, but a campaign was quickly organised by SOAS campus unions and students, migrant worker activists and anti-deportation campaigners. SOAS management was held responsible for ISS “ambushing” their cleaners as punishment for winning union recognition and the London Living Wage.

The academics’ union UCU at the University of Sussex cancelled industrial action planned for late June after university bosses declared they were “hopeful” they could avoid any compulsory redundancies.

It soon emerged however that compulsory redundancies had been transformed into ‘voluntary’ ones and the number of job losses remained at over 100, with a similarly severe impact on many courses and workloads expected.

One student mocked the management statement: “We are pleased to announce that the 100 have jumped, and were not pushed. The knives to their backs were unrelated.” A lecturer also commented that “I, among many, have been made ‘voluntarily’ redundant, after being selected for compulsory redundancy. The University seems to have got rid of everyone it wanted by forcing us to accept a ‘voluntary’ settlement.”

A new Education Bill is set to massively extend Labour’s controversial Academies programme.

The Education Secretary Michael Gove has now added Ofsted-graded “outstanding” schools to the hit-list. His plans promise even more Academies; over 150 schools have already applied for Academy status, with hundreds more enquiring for further information or registering an interest. The Academies scheme allows non-state bodies, including religious groups, businesses and voluntary groups to take control of schools in exchange for a nominal amount of funding for new facilities.

THIS Saturday (29th May), 12pm – 6pm in Brighton. Join the Facebook event. Venue to be confirmed very soon here and on Facebook.

As a new government is getting ready to attack the living conditions of ordinary people, students and education workers have already had experiences with cuts – and how we can stop them. We will try to draw the lessons from the strikes, occupations and other forms of direct action taken in HE and FE over the last months. How can we build effective alliances between students and workers? How can we act in solidarity across education establishments? How can we organise from below to defend education?

National conference with talks and workshops, open to students and education workers.

The new Education Worker, bulletin of the EWN is now available. You can download it from the link below. 

In this issue:

• Strike Action to Defend Jobs & Pay
• Victory at Tower Hamlets
• “Five HE Unions, One Demand”?
• PGCE cuts
• London Met Occupied
• Education Without Borders
• Redundancies in HE
• Consultation? What Consultation?

Get your copy by writing to us, or from our stall at the anarchist bookfair on 24. October, or download it as a pdf file here.
 

While the recent media spin is suggesting that we’re ‘on our way out of recession’, the reality on the ground is that workers are still facing attacks across sectors in the forms of job cuts and community provisions. Education has been one of the sectors worst hit in this period, with £65m slashed from higher-education (HE) budgets, schools closing left, right and centre, and jobs to go at approximately 100 of the 150 HE institutions in the UK . The situation is as bleak as ever.

In August, around 250 members of teaching staff at Tower Hamlets College (THC), East London went on indefinite strike over threats of compulsory redundancies, and cuts in provision of ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) courses. Catalyst spoke to Rachel, a member of the striking staff, about the background of the dispute, the issues at hand, and the feelings after the strike came to an end in late September.

In this issue:

The University Funding Freeze ; Alternative G20 at University of East London ; Roundup ... University and Colleges Roundup ; H.E. Pay: Don't be Fooled ; Break with Partnership

In this issue:

Migrant Cleaners ; Confronting Inequality ; Double Whammy for the Low Paid ; Unions Derecognised at Nottingham Trent ; Hera to Zero ; What we Mean by Direct Democracy

In this issue:

Bullying ; HERA Lessons ; What we think of... ; Pensions ; Work Councils ; Academy Schools

In this issue:

HERA ; What we think of... ; Crichton Campus ; Union Partnership ; Health & Safety