We’re university staff and members of University and College Union (UCU). We teach you, support you, guide you and do the research you rely on. We are on strike over falling pay, working conditions and cuts to our pensions.
Trade unions represent people at work and aim to improve pay and conditions. Our strike means we’re refusing to work so that university bosses listen to us and we can find a resolution to the dispute. Just to dispel any myths your lecturers do NOT get paid when they are taking strike action.
Why should students support the strike?
Our working conditions are your learning conditions. Like everyone else, university staff are struggling with the cost of living crisis, on top of excessive workloads, discriminatory pay gaps and insecure jobs. This affects our ability to teach and support you.
Students and staff deserve better than this and it doesn’t have to be this way. Income in the university sector is higher than ever and keeps increasing but the proportion spent on staff has decreased. Bosses have chosen to spend on buildings and on hoarding reserves rather than on what would help the staff and students.
Another university is possible, but we need to stand together. UCU campaigned alongside the NUS against tuition fees and we still believe in a fully funded higher education system freely available to all.
This dispute is not just about pay. Indeed, for many staff workload is a bigger issue, you will find it hard to find a member of staff who doesn’t work weekends and evenings just to keep up with everything they have to do. Did you know that when marking your work your lecturers have about 5 minutes for every 1000 words you write to read, digest, allocate a mark and write your feedback? As you can imagine the marking process in reality takes longer than this so staff are giving up weekends & evenings and are working for free to do this. Understandably staff are exhausted and are asking for your support. A pay “award” that in reality represents yet another pay cut just adds insult to injury!
Please read this statement from the national NUS in support of our action and look at the resources available from the NUS Charity
How can you show your support?
1 Contact your VC (vice-chancellor), Professor Paul Croney, and let him know
you are backing the staff.
2 Visit our picket lines and let us know you are with us.
3 Post support using #ucuRISING on social media.