Students demand payback for classes lost as lecturers embark on wave of walkouts
Nearly 100,000 students have signed petitions demanding compensation from universities for classes lost due to striking lecturers. Tens of thousands of university workers are expected to take part in a wave of walkouts in an ongoing dispute over pensions.
Members of the University and College Union (UCU) at 64 UK institutions have staged the first in a series
of strikes after voting in favour of industrial action.
The dispute centres on proposals put forward by Universities UK (UUK) for changes to the Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS). Employers argue the pension scheme is billions of pounds in deficit, while the union says the proposals would leave a typical lecturer almost £10,000 a year worse off in retirement.
Around 93,000 students have signed petitions calling on universities to compensate them for disrupted lectures, Professor Chris Forde, who has been compiling data on the number of signatories, told The Independent. The number of signatories was likely to hit 100,000 by last night, Mr Forde, a UCU member at the University of Leeds who supports the industrial action, added.
Strikes started yesterday and will continue today, Monday and Tuesday, with more in the coming weeks if there is no resolution, building up to a five-day walkout in the week beginning 12 March.
Jeremy Corbyn sent his “solidarity and thanks” as staff began their walkouts. The Labour leader said his party was “deeply concerned” about changes to the USS scheme as he urged employers to commit to negotiations.
UCU said it expected tens of thousands of its members to take part in the industrial action, with over a million students affected and 575,000 teaching hours lost.
Sally Hunt, the UCU general secretary, said: “The scale of these unprecedented strikes reflects just how destructive the proposals would be for staff pensions and their anger at university leaders to come back to the table to negotiate. Despite the fact that over a million students are going to be affected, university employers have been unwilling to reconsider their position and look at reasonable alternatives which would give staff security in retirement. Nobody is taking this action lightly, but the ball remains firmly in the employers’ court. If further disruption is to be avoided, university leaders must put further pressure on their representatives to get back to the table for meaningful discussions with UCU.”
UUK said the pension scheme has a deficit of more than £6bn that cannot be ignored, and there is a legal duty to put a credible plan in place by the summer to reduce the deficit.
Around 16 per cent of academic staff that are UCU members in the 64 institutions affected voted in favour of strike action, according to UUK.
In a video message, Mr Corbyn said: “On behalf of the Labour Party, I want to send solidarity and thanks for all the work you do in our universities and colleges. We are deeply concerned by the proposed changes to the USS that would leave our university staff up to £10,000 a year worse off in retirement. Downgrading the pension scheme will affect recruitment, retention, and ultimately our ability to offer world-class higher education. Everyone deserves the dignity and security in old age that comes from a decent pension.”
He added: “It’s been great to see strong support from students for striking staff, but for everyone’s sake we need to find a solution which avoids further disruption. So I join staff and students in calling for the employers to commit now to meaningful negotiations, through Acas if necessary, to resolve this dispute.”
On the eve of the action, the universities minister, Sam Gyimah, warned UUK and UCU they must resolve the “damaging and avoidable impasse”. In a tweet referencing an editorial in The Times, the minister said: “Times Editorial on Uni strikes is spot on. For the sake of students and the reputation of our Universities, UCU and UniversitiesUK need to find a way through this damaging and avoidable impasse ASAP.”
UCU has warned that if the dispute is not resolved, then action could continue, including into the summer exams period.
Academics warn pension reforms could push 'large numbers of people into poverty'
Lecturers and students dance along to steel drums on the steps outside the university building. But they are not here for a celebration. They're on the picket line at SOAS University of London for the first day of strikes against changes to the lecturers’ pensions.
The university in the capital is just one of 57 universities across the UK hosting mass walkouts this week. Thirteen more days of strike action is expected to take place until Friday 16 March.
The dispute centres on proposals put forward by Universities UK (UUK) for changes to the Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS).
The University College Union (UCU) has argued that the current proposals would leave a typical lecturer almost £10,000 a year worse off in retirement.
But UUK says that the pension scheme has a deficit of more than £6bn that cannot be ignored.
Speaking to The Independent from the picket line, Tom Armstrong, UCU branch president of SOAS, called the proposals “appalling”.
He said: “It is the removal of a guaranteed pension for lecturers.”
It is a freezing cold winter’s day – but this has not stopped students from coming out in force and supporting the strikers on the picket line at SOAS who have been there since 7am.
Students have provided their lecturers with hot water bottles, tea and biscuits.
“It has been excellent,” Mr Armstrong said. “What has been particularly heartening is the support from students and Unison members as well. The reaction has been excellent.”
And across SOAS and its neighbouring universities - Birkbeck College, University College London, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and Senate House – hundreds have attended.
“It has kind of got a bit of a carnival atmosphere – without the weather,” Mr Armstrong said.
As tens of thousands of lecturers and academics took to the picket line in the first day of action, a new YouGov survey revealed that three in five students backed their lecturers in the dispute.
And the student support became even clearer when a group of protesters occupied the headquarters of UUK – just 500 yards from SOAS - with their banners and drums.
Police officers were called to the Bloomsbury office where they stopped people from entering the front of the building while the students were still in there.
One sign in the window of Woburn House called the UUK out for citing their own reports when justifying their contributions to the economy.
But not all students have been as supportive. On the Exeter University students’ guild website, some suggested playing Margaret Thatcher speeches to strikers to remind them about the “value of hard work”.
Meanwhile, Conservative minister Liz Truss, the chief secretary to the Treasury, tweeted her support of “excellent” lecturers who had decided to cross the picket line.
The entrances to the buildings at SOAS are lined with people carrying leaflets and placards about the strikes, making it very difficult for academics and students to cross.
Paul O'Connell, a law lecturer at SOAS, told The Independent that the “flawed” pension scheme proposals could “force large numbers of people into poverty”.
He said: “We are taking a stand now on the question of pensions which is important – but it is also part of a bigger fight for many of us, which is about the future of higher education.”
More than 90,000 people have signed online student-led petitions, from 30 different universities, demanding compensation for the loss of teaching hours.
Mr O’Connell added that he thought it was “fair” to ask universities for a refund.