Following successful ballots, members of the UCU union are taking strike action in colleges across the country against cuts that will result in “the death of further education”. We publish here reports from Socialist Appeal supporters in Sheffield and Hackney, London, who have been on the picket lines with UCU members.
Following successful ballots, members of the UCU union are taking strike action in colleges across the country against cuts that will result in “the death of further education”. We publish here reports from Socialist Appeal supporters in Sheffield and Hackney, London, who have been on the picket lines with UCU members.
On Thursday 18th June, staff at Sheffield College were on strike again. This is the third day of strike action over the past six months – action that is being taken by staff at the college as a way to fight back against compulsory redundancies and the de-professionalisation of existing staff through downgrading.
Members of Socialist Appeal came to the picket line to support the strikers, which was welcomed, boosting the number of people on the picket line.
Action is set to continue next week, with management making no attempt to resolve the issues being raised. In fact, they said at the last meeting that they were unaware of our demands!
Management’s blatantly belligerent attitude is a symptom of the types of people who have been employed in the higher management rolls in FE colleges, many of whom have no background in education and no understanding of the demands on staff. Instead, they have been hired to make cuts and turn the college into a profit spinning business.
As with the Tories, these people are not ideologically or pathologically twisted; they do not take joy in axing people’s jobs. But they cannot imagine any other way to resolve the financial difficulties of the sector, as long as they are confined within the limits of the capitalist system.
The root cause of these cuts, which are so widespread, is not just nasty Tory ideology, but the crisis of capitalism. As long as we live within a capitalist system, we – the working class – will be continually taking this type of action to protect jobs, standards of living and, sadly, education.
Thus the fight at my workplace is not just for the handful of people who will lose their jobs – it is the fight to save Further Education. And if we hope to be successful, we must also unite with all other struggles. If we want to win, we cannot fight individual bosses, but must fight the capitalist system itself. Only in this way will we win; only in this way will our action be meaningful; and only in this way will we secure a future worth educating ourselves for.
Natasha Sorrell, Sheffield College UCU (personal capacity) and Sheffield Marxists
As reported previously, UCU members in Further Education in London have been balloting recently for strike action against cuts to jobs and courses that are being made in colleges across the city.
Ballots for strike action were universally supported, leading to strikes taking place last week (on Thursday) and today (Tuesday) in a number of colleges, including in Hackney, Lewisham, and North West London.
Several other colleges, on the basis of the threat of strike action, managed to secure a deal from management for no compulsory redundancies. As a result, strike action was called off in these places, including Tower Hamlets, Westminster Kingsway, and City and Islington colleges.
Socialist Appeal supporters visited Hackney Community College (HCC) on Thursday 18th June for a demonstration being called on the first day of strike action, in defence of Further Education. Carrying a mock coffin, UCU members and students from the area went on a funeral march from the college to Liverpool Street in the City of London – the heartland of British capitalism – to protest against the death of FE.
Michaela Hendriks, chair of the UCU branch at HCC, spoke passionately from the megaphone, explaining the vital role that FE plays for working class students, who would not be able to get the training and qualifications they need to get a job without it. At the same time, Michaela emphasised, the Tory cuts being made across Britain, if continued, would mean the destruction of this important lifeline.
Michaela went onto explain the pure hypocrisy of the Tory government, who on the one hand promote the idea of a dynamic and creative economy in Britain, but who also, on the other hand, then attack the very education that working class youth need if they are to enter such industries.
Several students spoke about how essential FE had been to them, in providing them with the skills and knowledge they needed. For example, Socialist Appeal spoke to a group of arts students on the foundation course, which is due to close as part of the cuts at HCC. All were going onto study art at university, but none of them could have done so without the foundation course provided at the FE college.
“I don’t know where I’d be or what I’d have done without this opportunity,” stressed Bodie, one of the foundation art students, who also works shifts from 3am at a warehouse before going into HCC to study, in order to make ends meet.
We returned to HCC today (Tuesday) to give our support to those on the picket line for the second day of strike action. The picket line was well attended, and the mood was positive, especially following the tremendous turnout at Saturday’s End Austerity Now demonstration, which has clearly served to lift the spirits and raised the confidence of workers everywhere to take action.
We spoke to Liz Lawrence, the national UCU President, who described the strike action against job cuts that is going on in colleges across the country at the moment. Currently, Liz explained, the union is having to fight battles locally, due to the Tory (and Blairite) laws surrounding industrial disputes, whereby action can only be balloted for on the basis of the particular job losses or wage cuts in this-or-that college. Combined with the new Tory plans to increase the threshold of support needed for strike action, these anti-union laws are specifically designed to stop workers from organising and defending their jobs and conditions.
But, although the impacts and effects are different in each location, the general process is one of constant attacks against the whole of Further Education. And yet, a co-ordinated national strike of UCU members against the cuts to FE would not be legal, as union members can only ballot over certain issues. Similarly, co-ordinated industrial action across the public sector against austerity would be illegal under the current anti-trade union laws – hence why mass strikes by the public sector in recent times have been over specific issues such as pay and pensions.
In reality, such strikes – despite being nominally over pensions or pay – are clearly an expression of the anger amongst workers against the general attack on their conditions and living standards by the Tory government – a government of the rich, for the rich, by the rich. They are strikes in retaliation for being made to pay for a crisis that we – the 99% – did not cause.
Given the general nature of these attacks on working people, on the youth, and on the poor – which arise from the general, global crisis of capitalism – it is vital that the leaders of the labour movement fight back with a general response, starting with the call for a one-day general strike. Indeed, UCU members themselves on the picket line today proposed such action, with one member even calling for an “all out” general strike!
A general strike would, of course, break the Tory anti-union laws. But such laws would be meaningless – worth less than the paper they are written on – in the face of millions of workers coming out, united, in a display of power and strength against the government. At the same time, a one-day general strike would help to galvanise the labour movement, and provide a launch pad after Saturday’s inspiring demonstration for a further wave of industrial action and protest in all sectors and all cities.
Militant, united action and a bold, socialist alternative programme: these are the shield and the sword that the working class possesses in the fight back against the Tories and their austerity. What is needed now is for the leaders of labour movement to pick these weapons up and put them into action.
