Sheffield Socialist Students supports UCU strikes
Joseph McHale, Sheffield Socialist Students
17 November was the first day of joint strike action by the University and College Union (UCU) at both the University of Sheffield (UoS) and Sheffield Hallam University. Hallam had also gone on strike a week earlier.
After a busy first morning of picketing – at least ten buildings at UoS – UCU members and supporters converged outside the City Hall for a joint union rally. Socialist Students members were in the crowd supporting the speakers.
The UCU strike action is happening due to the shocking cuts both universities are aggressively pursuing. UoS has over £200 million in reserves but is pursuing £50.7 million in cuts for the 2025-26 year!
Socialist Students at UoS has worked with the university’s anti-cuts coalition to make students aware of strike action, petitioning over the last three weeks. We continued our support on the picket lines.
The rally included speeches from both UoS and Hallam staff and a student, all highlighting the dire conditions that have forced staff to take this action.
Many of those speeches mirrored the Socialist Party’s demands for fully funded and free education that is democratically run. This is imperative to improving the experience for both staff and students, which was well received at the rally.
The failed experiment of marketisation of our universities is acknowledged in the UCU bulletin. These cuts treat students as customers and staff as service providers, rather than appreciating the true value that they bring to education.
We need a fully publicly funded and democratically run university system, putting both the staff and students at the heart of it rather than soulless management and business interests. This is what Socialist Students will continue to fight for.
Fighting course closures and redundancies at Leicester uni
Alanah Carey Peacher, Leicester Socialist Party
At the beginning of the summer, University of Leicester (UoL) management announced that they would be slashing the staffing budget at the university by £11 million. Several courses, including Environmental Sciences and Chemistry, are under threat as well as many jobs.
Since then, the university bosses have revealed phase one of their cruel redundancy programme. Modern Languages is being shut down, and a whole series of departments are being merged, which will threaten further courses. A total of 160 redundances are planned.
On 12 November, the University and College Union (UCU) held a rally in the city in protest at the cuts. Over 300 staff, students and UCU members from around the country, as well as Unite members and other trade unionists and supporters, marched up to the university campus to hear speeches from staff and students affected by the cuts.
Staff members from Geography expressed their heartbreak upon hearing the news and their concern for the current and future students. The chair of UoL UCU explained that there is no transparency about the cuts. The university has the funds to create a campus in Dubai but not to fund the education of students in the city where the university was founded!
Members asked all in attendance to vote no confidence in the governance of the university. Socialist Student members will continue to build solidarity.
