Why Fair Pay is important

Why fair pay is important

Since 2009, pay in further and higher education has been cut every year. Every year, our employers in colleges and universities have made offers that are far lower than the rising cost of living.

As a result, lecturers, researchers and other professionals in further and higher education have seen their pay effectively cut by between 13 and 15% over four years.

Pay is falling as job cuts create heavier workloads and higher stress levels. So staff have to work harder while taking home less money to their families.

Pay cuts are bad for education in the UK:

If the problem of falling pay is not addressed, colleges and universities simply won’t be able to recruit and retain the brightest people to work for them and the quality of education as well as research in the UK will fall.

Politicians talk about the importance of a skilled, trained, highly educated population to our economy and to the life chances of our people, yet they will do nothing to invest properly in this education.

Our employers make decisions about where they spend the money they have every day, but they are failing to prioritise the staff who make our colleges and universities work.

Pay cuts are bad for the economy:

If the quality of education suffers, so will those learners of all ages who go through our colleges or graduate from our universities.

The pay cuts in further and higher education are part of the wider problems of living standards facing people across the UK. That’s why the TUC has launched a campaign to win support for pay rises for all working people.

Britain needs a pay rise to ensure that people feel secure and safe enough to spend money, that the economy grows properly and that living standards recover for all our people.

Stop the Criminalisation of Protest - SOAS open meeting

This is an open meeting in the JCR at 5pm on Tuesday in which students and staff can discuss the criminalisation of peaceful protest on our campus and how we take our campaigns forward at SOAS.

Over the last few months University of London (UoL) Management has cracked down on student protest. This began with the arrest and of, and ongoing case against, a student for chalking 3 Cosas campaign slogans on Senate House (chalk washes off), after which protest was banned on Senate House grounds. Since then, police presence during student protests on UoL campus has dramatically increased, as has violence inflicted upon students. Daniel Cooper, ULU Vice-President, was arrested during a police raid of the Students Union, forcibly searching and racially profiling students. Michael Chessum, ULU President, was arrested after a Save ULU demo for not notifying the police about the protest on UoL campus. We have never had to notify the police about protests on our University campus, nor should we.

Last Wednesday a network of 100 independent students from different universities occupied the offices of senior UoL management, including that of the Vice-Chancellor Adrian Smith. After 5 hours the police forcibly and violently evicted these students and arrested 5 in the process. The legality of their actions is questionable as students were not given the option to leave peacefully, and did not do anything to warrant arrest. (The Guardian and other media outlets have videos of police brutality towards students). During a peaceful protest against this increasing police presence, and the assault and arrest of students the previous night, (known as ‘Cops off Campus’) protesters were purposefully chased by the police off campus, to Euston Square, where they were kettled and arrested en masse. These arrestees included students, university staff, Union representatives, members of the press, legal observers, and even passersby, including an injured person on their way to hospital. The kettles were outside the Hospital, obstructing ambulances.

UoL has obtained an injunction, banning occupations on UoL campus, including Senate House, SOAS, and Birkbeck. Around the country we have seen similar scenes: five students were suspended at Sussex University and in Birmingham and Sheffield occupations were broken up by police.

This recent wave of crackdown on demonstrations in universities is taking place on the backdrop of austerity, and an accompanying attack on our right to protest - from mass arrests at anti-fascists demonstrations, and racist stop and searches, to the murders in police custody and the killing of Mark Duggan, and now cuts denying legal aid to protesters. This is a mechanism to uphold the status quo, which has been extended to universities with the increasing privatisation and the marketisation of higher education, whereby students are expected to act as compliant consumers, who should not be critical, and do not have a right to political expression and assembly. The campaings that UoL management want to suppress are around the defence of public higher education, opposing the selling off of student debt, the closure of ULU, and the right to protest, and the fight for staff’s fair and equal pay and conditions.

Join us on Tuesday, 10 December, from 5pm, to discuss the criminalisation of peaceful protest on our campuses, how this links to broader struggles concerning students, and planning for the protest the following day - https://www.facebook.com/events/565580810188930/

The meeting will begin with short speeches by: -Carol Duggan (Aunt of Mark Duggan who was murdered by the police in Tottenham in 2011) - Alfie Meadows (nearly killed by police during the Student Revolt of 2010, and DefendTheRightToProtest) - Recent SOAS Arestees (TBC)

Followed by open discussion. After the meeting there will also be a ‘know your rights’ session!