Supporting the winter 2018 strike

We have received confirmation of 14 days of escalating strike action by University and College Union (UCU) members at 61 universities across the UK, in protest against changes to UK higher education’s biggest pension scheme.

While I was hopeful that the Universities' representative would agree to negotiate to find a reasonable solution, they have repeatedly refused to budge even an inch. This will now be the largest disruption to the university sector in recent memory.

The National Union of Students has just called for students nationally to support the strike by:

• continuing to call for the university employers to recognise the seriousness of the situation and agree to meaningful negotiations either directly with the union or via ACAS;

• writing to their institution head to complain about the impact the strike will have on their learning, and

• participating in local demonstrative solidarity action during the strikes in support of UCU members.

The University is imposing massive and completely unnecessary cuts--roughly 10,000/year for an average member, and more for junior staff. This is driven not by actual financial insecurity, but rather by university desire to reduce their contributions and lower their risk, so that they can borrow more and continue unrestrained investment into infrastructure, slick marketing and pay-rises for senior management. While there might be some logic for reviewing terms of the pension scheme, there is no reasonable justification for gutting it.

It's time Universities go back to investing in human capital.