UCU Strikes: A Student’s Perspective
As a humanities student, I’m well acquainted with UCU (The University and College Union which represents academic staff at the university) strike action, having had multiple tutors go on strike over 17 days in my first year of uni (2019-20). Whilst I naturally missed the teaching input, as many staff members prepare to go on strike again on 1st-3rd December, I’m standing with staff in solidarity to improve pay (including the gender and ethnicity pay gap), pension benefits, and job security.
But why do staff have to disrupt student learning?
As one first year tutor explained in a mass email, going on strike from teaching responsibilities is the only impactful way to force the university to act. The other main strand of tutor’s workload – research – can be achieved in any timeframe; the university won’t care too much if a member of staff doesn’t apply for a research grant or submit a journal article. Striking against teaching responsibilities, meanwhile, whilst unpleasant, demonstrates the real impact that tutors make, and draws the university’s attention to staff’s value within the university community – as in, the whole ideology of strike action. Tutors are not striking out of laziness or apathy, and, from personal experience, they really do care about strikes’ negative effects on students: I have seen multiple staff members in real anguish debating whether to strike or not. It’s also worth mentioning that whilst inherently disruptive, (because that’s the point) these strikes are relatively short, affecting three, or two and a half days of teaching if you exclude Wednesday afternoon. And yet, by directly involving students in strike action, there’s also potential for student-staff solidarity.
Why is student-staff solidarity more important this time round?
This time round, Leeds University Union (LUU) have stated that they will not support the strike, as our editor reported. As a separate institution to the university that represents all Uni Of students, the LUU has huge potential to shape student views of the strikes. However, instead of directing students to vent their understandable frustrations at the university Vice-Chancellor, the LUU have flat-out refused to show solidarity, though they claim to support, “without question, the right to fair pay, decent working conditions, a secure retirement and contract terms and conditions that reflect the work of teaching staff.” The LUU’s argument centres on the idea of unnecessary student disruption, coming after over eighteen months of Covid. Yet, staff, especially those on casualised contracts, have also been massively plighted by the effects on Covid, whilst individual teaching staff cannot be held responsible for the university’s overall Covid strategy. Students and staff are, in many ways, fighting the same fight against the university.
If you need any more convincing that the university, and not striking lecturers, should be held accountable for student disruption, consider an FAQ email from the university’s Student Communications team sent to all students in October. The question “What is the university doing to avoid a strike?” was answered with
“The issues at the heart of the ballot are national issues, affecting many universities. We want to see them resolved as soon as possible, but some of the issues are beyond our control”
– Leeds Univeristy Student Communications Team
And yes, this is their full, unabridged answer. In two sentences, the university washes its hands of any responsibility over staff’s working conditions. I don’t deny that the government, as implied, has an important role to play here, but then, what exactly is the university doing to solve these “national issues”?
