Link to this page: http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/issue/716/14453
From The Socialist newspaper, 2 May 2012
UCU joins 10 May strike - student solidarity needed
Lecturers and academic staff in most of the UK's universities and colleges will be joining other public sector workers on strike on 10 May against attacks on pensions.
Despite over a year of negotiations, the government refused to make any substantive shifts on a pensions deal that would see lecturers working into their late 60s, taking home less money for their work and facing poverty when they retire.
Work by Socialist Students this week helped convince the National Union of Students (NUS) to continue its paper position of supporting lecturers in their fight. But, as the "national" walkout on 14 March showed, the NUS leadership are not serious about backing up their words with action. It falls to ordinary students to show our support for our lecturers.
To safeguard education for future generations and to minimise disruption to it now, we students have a duty to stand with our lecturers and to make the 10 May strike effective.
If there's strike action at your college or university, don't go in - instead, join your lecturers on the picket line.
Meanwhile, negotiations on university lecturers' pay remain inconclusive, with employers still offering lecturers a real-terms pay cut of 3%. The failure of the employers to make up for three years of pay cuts could lead to a new round of strikes in the autumn of 2012.
Edmund Schluessel, Cardiff University UCU, personal capacity and Cardiff University student
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In The Socialist 2 May 2012:
Fighting the government attacks
Kick out the Con-Dems and end austerity
A strategy to stop austerity and bring down the government of the super-rich
Fight privatisation: Save our libraries
National Shop Stewards Network 6th annual conference
Socialist Party news and analysis
Rich list: The good times roll for the 0.00001%
Leveson exposes links between Tories and Murdoch
Socialist Students
NUS conference Support for left and for action
Housing crisis
Social dumping won't solve the housing crisis
Socialist Party feature
Don't accept the misery of austerity
Socialist Party workplace news
Unison leadership 'woefully inadequate' in face of cuts
Rotherham teachers stand up to bullying
Bilborough College Nottingham strike Action over five-term years
UCU joins 10 May strike - student solidarity needed
Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition feature
TUSC: the electoral alternative to the parties of the rich
Socialist Party campaigns
Thug attack won't stop anti-racist work
Socialist MEP discusses way forward for Tamils struggle
Sheffield marches against sexism and cuts
International socialist news and analysis
Capitalist crisis: 'Up to half of all Icelandic families are bankrupt'
Kazakhstan: Socialists jailed by regime
Environment and socialism
The government's fractured energy policy
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