University Strike Report

On Thursday 23 January university lecturers in the University and College Union (UCU) undertook a two-hour strike action over an ongoing pay dispute. Workers at De Montfort University for example must continue working in the face of a massive effective pay cut while their vice chancellor, on the other hand, continues to get pay rises. However, pay isn’t the only issue, and striking workers raised the issue of workload as well.

One of the attacks that will be made, as I was told, will mean that IT technicians will be moved into just one building. At the moment lecturers can go to the technician in their building and the technician can set up a replacement projector if need be. When the technicians are moved to just one building, IT problems will take longer to get sorted, so if a projector breaks down, it’ll cause a lot of disruption to teaching by disrupting lessons.

Lecturers were very thankful for the support they received from students. The DSU (De Montfort Student Union) disgracefully, but unsurprisingly, failed to show any support for the strike and said they were ‘neutral’. Instead they should have shown active support to university staff and worked to raise awareness of the strike. In essence they should have done the decent thing and shown solidarity to our hardworking staff, instead of cosying up to the university management.

Elsewhere in Leicester, Sebastian O’Halloran, the union branch secretary of UCU at the University of Leicester spoke to the Socialist Party and said:

Certainly at the University of Leicester we are very concerned, because they are one of the minority of universities that have turned around and said that because we are striking for two hours that they will deduct a full days pay. And obviously UCU will be escalating action, and have said that they would take the university to court if they go through with this action. We are very angry with the universities response and so today’s action has been very good…They are trying to intimidate and bully us: certainly that UCU’s view and that’s our view as a branch. It is in affect a lock-out.