Workers on Campus

Last year the main union for university staff at the ‘old’ universities, the AUT went on strike against the government’s proposed pay deal. Like most public sector workers, lecturers (as well as administrators, librarians, research and computer staff, and postgraduate tutors) have seen a steady decline in their pay and conditions, but the proposed offer was a particularly blatant attack on workers in higher education.

One thing that is clear is that the government and the vice chancellors want to link varying rates of top-up fees at different universities to varying rates of pay for staff. Both union and student activists saw that they were fighting the same battle against the marketisation of education. There was widespread support amongst students on the two days that the AUT decided to strike, with the NUS calling joint action on the second day. Following the strike action, there was a boycott of student assessment, with tutors refusing to mark essays or exams.

As a result of this action the employers were forced to back down and concede ground to the AUT, although now the summer exam period is over it’s not clear that they will keep their word! Crucial in this success was the support of students and a number of other unions being in dispute at the same time – at my university, the strike coincided with local action by refuse workers and taxi drivers, and Socialist Students members brought a PCS Jobcentre worker to our picket line in solidarity.

A key issue linking lecturers and students is the casualisation of teaching in higher education. Increasingly, postgraduate students and other hourly-paid tutors are used as a cheap alternative to senior lecturers and professors. While these tutors welcome the teaching experience they get, there is no excuse for not giving them the full rights of any other worker, including access to pension schemes, crèches, sick pay and, most importantly, on the same salary scale. Similarly, students should get regular access to more senior staff as well as hourly-paid tutors.

Socialist Students and the left in the unions on campuses should work to keep and strengthen the link between students and workers at a local and national level. Only by linking our struggles with those of other public sector workers and students in schools and colleges can we defeat New Labour’s plans to privatise higher education.

AUT member