The UCU and NUS branches here ran events in tandem, including speakers and a recruitment stall.
UCU also showed their film ‘day in the life’.
“Thanks for attending today.
You may or may not know that over £1bn has been cut from higher education budgets for the next three years already, thousands of jobs have already gone, and thousands more are at risk. For the first time in decades the education system is shrinking and the barriers to access are rising. Current and future generations are at risk of being locked out of our education system.
Today’s action is in preparation for the Lib-Con coalition emergency budget tomorrow, which will undoubtedly see attacks on public sector pay and pensions in the name of the ‘national debt’, a crisis brought on by de-regulated financial markets.
UCU have recruited over 20,400 new members since the crash began to hit, in 2008. Staff and students have now united in an unprecedented sector-wide coalition to oppose the cuts. UCU, NUS, GMB, ATL, EIS, Unite and Unison, have all come together for education.
Our colleagues are running all kinds of different events all around the country, have a look at the website to see the wide range of events, from the serious (strike action) to the silly (a conga against cuts).
My ex-colleagues at Bradford College were due to be on strike today, but it was announced this morning that they have suspended plans for action because the union has secured a redundancy agreement with the college, following an announcement of job losses earlier this year. The union said today that is was delighted with a victory which it attributes to strong collective action by UCU members and the skill and diligence of its local negotiators (i.e. its regional representatives).
I often hear apathetic rather than hostile responses to union activism, ‘what’s the point’, etc and yet this is one of the many examples where action has yielded an agreement with the institution. Our situation at Hereford College of Arts, so far, is quite different. We have an upturn in HE funding of 8.5% for next year, although the picture for FE is more mixed. Yet we roll into the emergency budget already outside of the progressive pay frameworks advised by the UCU and the Association of Colleges, of which Hereford College of Art is a member. These were implemented in 2003/4.
So, having a UCU branch here is very important, although I hope – I would like to think – that serious activism will continue to be unnecessary here. However, I’d like to take the opportunity to thank Dawn, our FE rep and all of our branch members for their support and commitment here, our regional reps are always impressed by the turnout at branch meetings when they visit. What we do here as a branch is crucial to continue through the troubling period which has just begun.
I’d now like to show a very short new film on the range of work carried out by the UCU.
Thanks for your patience.