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).
COME down for 1pm and join in the LARGEST demonstration (so far) against privatisation at Sussex University, and to show that universities nationwide are NOT FOR SALE!
IF coming from outside of Brighton, please organise a coach to come down from your local area. Stay in the occupation the night before and if you please, stay for a celebration afterwards...
With encroaching privatisation across campuses, we need to stand up and make it heard: OUR UNIVERSITY IS NOT FOR SALE!
more details to follow, including speakers, but get planning!
The University is a Factory - SHUT IT DOWN!
The long-running struggle against the outsourcing of 235 jobs at the University of Sussex has been gathering momentum. The plans were first announced in May 2012, prompting demonstrations and mass meetings by staff and student supporters.
About seventy people demonstrated at SOAS on the 6th June, in the continuing battle for better conditions for cleaners in the London universities.
The cleaners at some universities have won the London Living Wage, but they have not given up and are demanding equal conditions of employment for all staff - fair sick pay, holiday pay and pension contributions. Some universities, like UCL, are refusing to make any increase in cleaners’ wages. Others, like at Senate House, have conceded the LLW but are now trying to impose speedup on the cleaners with an increase in workload.
Staff and students rallied against planned privatisation of over 10% of campus jobs in Library Square this lunchtime. Staff had come equipped to disrupt a planned 'bidders meeting' with many carrying airhorns, only to discover management had moved the meeting to the Amex stadium across the road. With security and conference staff amongst those facing outsourcing, suggests management don't feel able to hold such meetings on campus without the details leaking out and the threat of disruption.
North London Solidarity Federation hereby expresses its solidarity with Bloomsbury Fightback and the activists involved in the Bloomsbury Social Centre initiative in their resistance against the imminent threat of violent eviction by SOAS management.
Sir Ian Blair, ex Commissioner of the Met Police was meant to give a talk at Sussex university last night, but faced disruption from students - see the report below.
After the last UCU pensions strike in March, several rank & file union members, upset at the lack of inter-union unity, set up the Manchester University Staff Against the Cuts group (MUSAC). The group has been meeting regularly and consists of members of Unite, Unison and UCU. Members of Manchester EWN are also involved.
It has been good to meet with people whose criticisms of the existing unions match our own in many ways. The group has held a weekly stall in the University, giving out leaflets in support of various anti-cut campaigns.
University leavers are increasingly taking low-skilled jobs, according to new research. A study by the Centre for Economics and Business Research found that 6 months after graduation around 40% of 2010’s graduates were “underemployed” in lower-skilled jobs, up from about 30% in 2006. The information casts further doubts over the controversial tripling of tuition fees, which provoked mass demonstrations across the country at the end of last year, as well as a spate of university occupations.