education

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The Solidarity Federation Education Union (SFEU), welcomes the news that workers in Further and Higher education have voted to take strike action on pay and pensions. On both counts, the voting threshold was attained (some 84.9% in favour with a 60.2% turnout for strikes over pension cuts and 81.1% in favour with a 57.7% turnout on real term pay cuts).

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SFEU (Solidarity Federation Education Union) continues to stand in solidarity with those workers who are currently involved in the UCU industrial actions taking place at FE and HE institutions across the country.

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The UCU, at a Special Higher Education Sector Conference, has now set out the terms of the continuing dispute centred on pensions and the Four Fights (casualization, workload, equal pay and conditions for women and BAME workers and the broader issue of pay).

WHAT IS GOING ON? 

The University and College Union (UCU) is on strike at your institution from Monday the 28th to Wednesday the 2nd. The National Union of Students (NUS) has also called a student strike on the 2nd.

The strikes need your support. The best way to help us win is to stay out of university today.

WHY SHOULD I SUPPORT THE STRIKE?

Teachers’ working conditions are your learning conditions. Many of us will go on to work in education too, so this is directly in our interests.

Lecturers’ pay has fallen by 20%.

One third of academic staff are on precarious, short-term contracts.

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The University and College Union (UCU) is continuing its action in defence of fair pensions and fair working conditions. Staff will be on strike in February and March in relation to both the pension dispute and the “Four Fights” (pay,  workload, casualization, structural inequality). 

The Solidarity Federation Education Union (SFEU) supports this action because… 

● University lecturers’ pay has fallen by 20%. 

● One third of academic staff are on precarious, short-term contracts. 

Starting on Wednesday 1st December, 58 branches of UCU (University and College Union) went on strike for 3 days over issues surrounding pensions, pay, working conditions and pay gaps. A group of SolFed members who are students at Sussex University attended the picket line and took part in direct action in support of all staff who were on strike.

The strike began with a big demonstration and march around the campus, ending at Sussex House - the university’s management building. We attended and waved our red and black flag, asserting an anarcho-syndicalist presence among the students.

The “marketisation” of universities in the past decade has led to the increased use of insecure and precarious contracts. A report by the UCU found that  54% of all academic staff and 49% of all academic teaching staff are on insecure contracts.

If this was not bad enough, as a result of the Corvid-19, many universities are making temporary staff redundant rather than putting staff on furlough. With universities now facing an £8 billion deficit as a result of Covid-19, there can be little doubt that this is part of an overall strategy that will lead to cuts to jobs and pay in the future.

Already the University of Manchester has informed staff that they should expect job and pay cuts due to the pandemic. It goes without saying that every job and pay cut needs to be fought. But this has to go hand in hand with a wider vision for education. The marketisation of higher education has been a disaster for staff and students alike, it is time for an alternative.

Working conditions in educational institutions are becoming more and more difficult. This is often linked to managers making cuts, establishing austerity measures, or asking all workers to do more for less.  We currently organise as a network of workers at University of Brighton, and have links to other educational institutions.

We aim to organise to improve these conditions on a day-to-day basis, trying to fight winnable disputes for caretakers, cleaners and hourly-paid lecturers alike. To resist the ways that these institutions are attacking the working conditions of all staff means working together, not establishing boundaries between academic and non-academic staff.

Five years ago, “zero hours” contracts came to the attention of the national media. While there is no one type of “zero hours” contract,  in all cases workers receive no guaranteed weekly hours or income. Workers are paid only for the actual hours worked, and the employer is under no obligation to provide any work. Their use by employers in very many sectors of the British economy has mushroomed in recent years. In 2006, possibly 0.5% of the workforce had “zero hours” contracts (130,000). According to the Labour Force Survey, 901,000 people (representing 2.8% of all workers) were on contracts that do not guarantee work in December 2017.