What's With The Strikes?
Updated: 7 hours ago
If you’ve been a student in Edinburgh for any length of time, you’re no stranger to strikes. The 2022/23 academic year saw students being welcomed into the city by a 12-day bin strike around the time of the Fringe festival. In October, the Gordon Aikman Lecture Theatre was ‘reclaimed’ by a group of students to stand against the “colonial capitalist and heterosexist institutions at the root of global oppression.” In May 2022, the UCU had announced a marking boycott which was later cancelled. Now, the University and College Union (UCU) has announced 18 days of industrial action across February and March, the first day being Wednesday, 1 February.
Why are they striking?
According to UCU’s website, this period of industrial action is the biggest series of strikes to hit UK universities, with over 150 universities being affected. Negotiations have been going on for years. Back in November 2022, Jo Grady, the General Secretary of UCU, said that the UCU would bring every university in the UK to a standstill unless the universities start taking the negotiations seriously. Here are their 5 main demands:
1. Pay
Staff pay has dropped around 23% in real terms since 2009. The UCU rejected universities’ 3% pay increase offer and is asking for a raise of inflation rate + 2%.
2. Workload
The university relies on staff’s unpaid labour, with staff working over 16 hours a week without pay.
3. Equality
Women and BME staff are underpaid by over 15% and underrepresented in higher posts. There is an urgent need to close the gender and race pay gaps.
4. Pensions
Pension cuts that were announced last year have a 35% impact on the average member’s guaranteed future retirement income.
5. Casualisation
>42% of staff are on casual contracts. They have to renew their contracts every year if not more often which puts them in a constant state of transience. You never know what will happen next.
These numbers hit harder in light of the recent knighting of Edinburgh’s VC, Peter Mathieson. You only need to look at the bills of his university-donated private residence that are all borne by the university to realise the problem is not the lack of money. The money just needs to be directed to the right places.
What does this mean for us?
The confirmed days of the industrial action are here.
The key thing here is that not all staff choose to strike. Whether to strike or not is a personal choice, and not everyone can afford to skip out on the pay (staff are not paid for the days they go on strike). Typically, you will be notified if your professors or tutors are striking. In that case, your lectures and/or tutorials will be cancelled on the day of the strikes. Staff are not supposed to reschedule classes to compensate for any missed content, and they may even remove some uploaded content (although I’ve not seen that happen very often). Not all schools participate in the strikes equally enthusiastically, though. The College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, in my experience, has a much greater proportion of striking staff than, say, the College of Science and Engineering. Further, beyond cancelled classes, events may be cancelled too. On 1st February, 2023, members of the Student-Staff Solidarity Network disrupted a post-graduate recruitment fair happening in McEwan Hall
The issues raised by the UCU don’t just impact staff. The difficult working conditions that they work in has a direct impact on the quality of education that students receive. The UCU has asked its members to participate in Action Short of a Strike (ASOS), which means staff are only working for the hours they are paid for. Very often, this means there is not enough time for tutors to prepare for workshops and tutorials, or for markers to grade assignments.
What can I do?
In the past, supporting the strike by not crossing picket lines could be counted as breaking student visa requirements. Now, however, the laws have been updated to allow international students to support strikes. The university suggests students continue engaging with their studies more broadly if they choose to miss teaching or assessments in support of the industrial action.
Choosing to support strikes as a student is not an easy decision. However, if you do decide to do that, there are plenty of ways to stand for the cause. Of course, you can choose to be as involved as you want to.
1. Don’t cross picket lines.
Picket lines include all uni buildings (not EUSA buildings like Teviot, Pleasance or Potterrow) except the Main Library. The busier buildings such as Appleton Tower and Old College would typically have people (‘pickets’) on the picket line who would try and explain the reason behind the strikes and discourage you from going into the building.
2. Email Peter Mathieson.
Here’s a template email you can use. Or, you could put your name and student number on this email.
3. Sign a pledge of support.
Where does the money go?
If you deep-dive into the numbers, the data is shocking. International fourth-year students have lost over £9000 worth of tuition since 2019. On the other hand, the University saves £57,000 a day during the strikes by not paying striking staff. When you look at the exorbitant tuition fees that international students pay, it makes one wonder where the money really should go.
The demands of the UCU are valid, so until the VCs of universities across the country take action, the strikes can only be expected to get worse. Meanwhile, for students, the University of Edinburgh has offered a Learning Opportunity fund of up to £350 per student as a way of compensating for the strike. While this is far from enough, this fund is undoubtedly a great resource to use on learning opportunities such as short courses, conferences or even music lessons. The fund is expected to open in a few days, so keep an eye out (make sure that you carefully look at what the fund does and doesn’t include before you apply, though).
The hard truth is that strikes are an unavoidable part of the student experience here at Edinburgh. Our best hope is that universities soon realise that they need to pay their staff and fix their working conditions to deliver the quality of education students have come to expect.
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