‘Students, and workers, unite and fight!’, so claims one of the many simplistic, nursery-rhyme-like chants of recent weeks. For university support staff (and indeed academic staff) the reality is, at times, more problematic. Students are often the ones who complain about us, particularly as fees get higher and they see themselves as having bought the right to a degree and a certain standard of service.
Even students who do genuinely build connections with workers can be selective in the workers they choose. Recently academics and students have worked together nationally and locally against cuts to education. While this is a good thing, there is a risk that they are building what has been referred to as ‘an unprecedented coalition of students and workers who used to be students’, while excluding university support staff (although, yes, most of us used to be students too). Students have been very active in their support for contract staff on low pay, and have campaigned for better pay and conditions for cleaning and catering staff. Hopefully this will translate into support for university staff facing further outsourcing and redundancies. Some of the student occupations have included no redundancies and the implementation of the living wage in their demands.
However, sometimes I get the impression that for students, uniting with the workers means: talking to lecturers / University and College Union (UCU); campaigning on behalf of low-paid migrant workers; and supporting striking FBU / RMT workers. All these are worthwhile endeavours, but the workers who actually work alongside them day by day in their universities should also feature in their plans. Students’ Unions in particular can be hypocritical, making a mockery of their ‘mission statements’, and acting as far worse employers than the universities themselves. They even campaign in support of contract staff in the universities while exploiting and / or bullying their own employees. Several London Students’ Unions, some of which claim to be ‘left-wing’, hire HR consultants who advise them on how to sack their workers with impunity, exploiting the fact that the law is stacked in favour of the employer.
There is something that Governments care for far more than human life, and that is the security of property, and so it is through property that we shall strike the enemy. Be militant each in your own way. I incite this meeting to rebellion. — Emmeline Pankhurst
Widening Participation
http://www.metamute.org/en/articles/widening_participation
‘Students, and workers, unite and fight!’, so claims one of the many simplistic, nursery-rhyme-like chants of recent weeks. For university support staff (and indeed academic staff) the reality is, at times, more problematic. Students are often the ones who complain about us, particularly as fees get higher and they see themselves as having bought the right to a degree and a certain standard of service.
Even students who do genuinely build connections with workers can be selective in the workers they choose. Recently academics and students have worked together nationally and locally against cuts to education. While this is a good thing, there is a risk that they are building what has been referred to as ‘an unprecedented coalition of students and workers who used to be students’, while excluding university support staff (although, yes, most of us used to be students too). Students have been very active in their support for contract staff on low pay, and have campaigned for better pay and conditions for cleaning and catering staff. Hopefully this will translate into support for university staff facing further outsourcing and redundancies. Some of the student occupations have included no redundancies and the implementation of the living wage in their demands.
However, sometimes I get the impression that for students, uniting with the workers means: talking to lecturers / University and College Union (UCU); campaigning on behalf of low-paid migrant workers; and supporting striking FBU / RMT workers. All these are worthwhile endeavours, but the workers who actually work alongside them day by day in their universities should also feature in their plans. Students’ Unions in particular can be hypocritical, making a mockery of their ‘mission statements’, and acting as far worse employers than the universities themselves. They even campaign in support of contract staff in the universities while exploiting and / or bullying their own employees. Several London Students’ Unions, some of which claim to be ‘left-wing’, hire HR consultants who advise them on how to sack their workers with impunity, exploiting the fact that the law is stacked in favour of the employer.
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