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AUT strike on Wednesday

Manos | 23.02.2004 10:20 | Education | Social Struggles | Workers' Movements | Cambridge

The association of university teachers (the union of accademic or non academic university staff) is going to strike this week. The dispute relates to pay cuts and the breakdown of the national salary negotiations.

More than 66% od the AUT members voted to support strike action relating to pay cuts and the breakdown of the national pay negotiations. The AUT website contains a DIY guide on how to organise the strike and pickets ( http://www.aut.org.uk/index.cfm?articleid=707) and the list of all universities that are expected to strike ( http://www.aut.org.uk/media/html/membersballotactionletter1.html). An interesting twist is that the NUS supports the strike and in return (as explained in the letter bellow) the AUT supports the campaign against top-up fees!

The Cambridge specific details: CAUT calls on its members to strike on Tuesday and Wednesday. On Wednsday there will be a picket line from 8.30 to 11.30 on Pembroke Street by the entrance to the Downing Site. There will also be a rally in the Univeristy Sports and Social Club on Mill Lane at 12.30 on Wednesday. ( http://www.aut.cam.ac.uk/)

Letter to students:

Dear student,

Industrial action by the Association of University Teachers (AUT)

As you may know, AUT is the trade union that represents academic and senior administrative, library and computing staff in most UK universities. You will also know that after two decades of under-investment, university staff are among the lowest paid professional groups in the UK - a fact even acknowledged by the prime minister.

Now, the university employers have proposed a complete change in the way that we are paid and graded. The proposed new pay structure would mean:

* Reductions in career earnings for many already low paid academic and related staff of as much as £40,000 over the next ten years

* Jobs being graded according to where staff work, not what they do, and the local evaluation of staff based on unproven techniques

* The end of meaningful national negotiations on our pay and conditions; and the weakening of our union AUT as the national voice of staff

The employers have refused to negotiate with AUT and, in December excluded AUT from talks when our union refused to agree to these changes.

Having tried to resolve the issue peacefully, AUT was forced to ballot members for strike action. The anger of staff across the country was shown by the fact that 67% voted to take strike action, starting in the week beginning Monday 23rd February and 81% voted for further disruptive action after that.

We have no wish to disrupt your education. Many of us choose to stay in higher education despite the relatively low pay on offer because our priority is - and always will be - the support and development of our students.

Yet, as I am sure you can understand, we can never accept a pay offer which actually reduces earnings for many, would lead to job insecurity and would weaken our union's ability to negotiate.

Your union, the National Union of Students (NUS), understands the dilemma we now face and has pledged full support to AUT members. Indeed, following an opinion poll which showed that 65% of students supported our reasons for striking, the NUS has called upon the university employers to resume negotiations to meet AUT's concerns.

My union believes that staff and students must campaign together for a better deal, and we fully support the NUS campaign against variable top-up fees.

You can help to resolve this dispute by emailing or writing to this university's vice-chancellor and asking them to put pressure upon UCEA (the national employers' negotiating body) to withdraw its earnings cutting proposals and resume meaningful national negotiations.

AUT has had a democratic ballot, and as a loyal union member, I will be supporting my union. I hope you understand that I do this with a heavy heart knowing that my employer's actions may mean a reduction in the quality of education available to you in the coming weeks.

For your part, I hope you will feel able to support AUT's stand for better resources for higher education, including pay for staff.
You can find out more about the key issues in this dispute at www.aut.org.uk.

Your support for our cause is crucial if we are to resolve this unnecessary dispute. If you have any concerns please do not hesitate to contact me.

With best wishes,

Manos

Comments

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Sussex University Strike Information

23.02.2004 11:10

The AUT at Sussex University are stiking too. There's a lot of support from students at the University for the strike. Students (and others) are being asked to show their solidarity and join the picket lines on Tuesday and Wednesday (meet 11am on Tuesday at the main entrance to the Uni. There's also a rally taking place in support of the strike, and in opposition to Top-Up Fees taking place at the University in Library Square at 12:30 on Wednesday.

Here's the text of a leaflet writted by 'Autonomous Students' at Sussex, explaining the situation, and calling for participation in the strike.


"STRIKE!

The strike of the Association of University Teachers (AUT) is a singular act of resistance in the multiplicity of struggles that occur in many spheres of our daily lives. The strike stems from the conflict between wage earners (our teachers), controllers of finance (VC Mr A Smith) and the state. The conflict of interests between these groups has arisen in the context of a changing university. Many of these changes are victories of neo-liberal economic policy with its ‘market-orientated’ reforms of state institutions. The commodification of education, the abolition of the grant system and the introduction of fees are expressions of this process. The most hard felt result is a decrease in working conditions for both staff and students. A recent pay-deal (rejected by the AUT) offered a decrease in overall wages for many Academic staff; this humiliating offer has triggered the strike on the 24th and 25th of February.
Our slimy rat of a VC, Alasdair Smith, wants us to believe that our grievances are the result of a chronic shortage of finances and the solution is top-up fees. Yet not only are there no provisions for wage increases in the government’s plans for top-up fees, but the pay deal which the AUT has rejected included a clause for local pay bargaining that would allow VC’s like him to use top-up fees and the subsequent competition between high and low cost universities as a stick with which to reduce wages even further.
Alasdair ’s eagerness to embrace the state’s neo-liberal measures is demonstrated by his administration’s disgusting attempt to intimidate staff into breaking the strike. In a display of bullying unheard of in any UK university, a letter from the unfortunately named Barbara Bush, ‘Director of Human Resources’, was sent out to all staff on the 16th of February demanding that everyone who strikes declare it in writing so that their pay may be docked, with the threat that if they do not their heads of department (referred to as ‘managers’) will report on them and ‘we will deduct salary on the basis of their information’ (a subsequent letter was sent out to all department heads asking them to grass up their colleagues). Such scare tactics are unprecedented in this University but are a defining feature of the efficient cost cutting enterprise the VC imagines himself running.
As students, whatever our differences with our teachers we cannot let this blatant provocation of staff members go unchecked. We must show the VC that he can’t count on students standing by unconcerned as he attacks staff who are struggling against falling wages and worsening conditions.

Don’t cross the pickets – join them!
Autonomous
meet Tuesday 11:00 at main entrance to uni."

dfs


My heart bleeds for you

23.02.2004 11:41

Do I care about middle England striking? Do I fuck. You still expect streets cleaned, toilets cleaned, pints served in pubs, dinners served in restaurants, goods packaged and served in ethically unsound chain supermarkets, by workers working on the minimum wage and less ( and not just in this country ),to keep your mainly leechlike ecounfriendly lifestyles going.

kill economists


Screw you, you posturing twat

23.02.2004 12:03

Try finding a dictionary and looking up the word "solidarity", arsehole; and then ponder how easily we could make a better world if more people understood the concept.

You wanker.

socialist


Don't feed the troll

23.02.2004 14:21

"kill economists" is a pathetic troll, not worth anyone spending any time on...

striker


AUT strike in Cardiff

23.02.2004 18:00

Just come back from the picket lines in Cardiff... Here's what I thought.
I'm a member of the NUS and a recently joined member of the AUT. Today was the first day of the week of strike action - Wales today, England tomorrow, National strike on Wed, Scotland on Thurs, and N Ireland on Fri.
The NUS said that they'd support all of these days of action, and the NUS pres Mandy Telford spoke at the lunchtime rally in Cardiff today (as did the local pres of Cardiff NUS) alongside people from the AUT national exec. There were about 150 lecturers there for the speeches and pickets were held all over the uni. Most lectures were cancelled.
NO (or hardly any) stuents went on strike in solidarity because hardly any of them knew about it. It's all very well the national NUS bods talking unity and support, but next to no work has been done in Cardiff to inform students about the strike that was on today, or the one on Wednesday. The result was that students just ignored picket lines, or looked bemused and walked past anyway. But that's just a local gripe.
More generally: whilst it's good to see the AUT taking action I'm not convinced that a series of one day strikes is going to worry the employers one iota. There's been a few ideas floated about various ways of working to rule and taking non-strike action if this doesn't work... but most lecturers that I've spoken to are so undecided about what action to take that none will be implemented properly in the end. Some don't want to boycott marking esss and exams because that would turn the students against the AUT (message to the AUT: at least then they might NOTICE us), some don't want to boycott admissions because that would piss off prospective students, etc, etc.
I thought strikes were meant to cause inconvenience. Most people don't know about the lecturers' struggle ANYWAY. It's only by affecting their lives in some way and having some kind of direct effect on people that they will come to know about that struggle.
Why NOT piss off the middle english middle class parents that are sending their kids to Uni if it means that it forces the employers to see that we aren't about to bend over and take a shafting AGAIN? Why not jolt the students out of their consumer-centric view of their own education by not assessing their work, and in the process, letting the employers know that we mean business?
Rant over.

llantwit


students for profit.

29.02.2004 17:23

It's easy to become bog down with all these links, you might be interested to there's a link to the Stopfeesnow.com which is run by the NUS.

[ http://www.nusonline.co.uk/subsites/stopfeesnow/index.php?]

No2fees


A Rethink of How Protest is Organise

29.02.2004 18:57

Lets face it those little strikes you've been having is hardly going to make the government worry about student and lectures missing the odd lesson.

Simply Because

A.) Government is saving money because of a few lecturers ain't turning up for work.

and

B.) It's the students who are the ones who losing out, not the Government.

The last letter also tells me that the protest and awareness campaign it not being coordinate as well as it should be. Some want direct action, others want to go down the political road through the legal legislation see [ http://www.nusonline.co.uk/resource/resources/pdf/4520.pdf] A lot of people it seem to think the protest is over, doesn't concern them.

It's all mishmash.

We need have a rethink of how the protest is being coordinate. From what I can make out the NUS are quiet keen on pushing for legislation but not so keen on coordinated action. As a result the students and the members of the public just ignored picket lines, or looked bemused and many walked past anyway.

The simplest thing that somebody "New Organization to Coordinate maybe?" has to do, is name a date, name location e.g. Westminster, spread the word quickly so that every single student in the U.K. knows what's going on. e.g. stick posters up as the lecturers hardly going take them down are they. And most importantly think of a theme for the protest, it's all very well turning up with a load of people, plaque cards and march around a bit as they're never trilling affairs.

Think new.

You have to entertain the protestors by proving music entertainment and by spontaneous actions by picketing a street for example, make it a day out that's worth going out for, a party almost. i.e. be a pain that the government fainlly has to take notice and make the public aware at the same time.

It's simple and easy.

Students Collective.


Right on

16.05.2006 18:20

Teachers of the world unite! You have nothing to lose but your £30000 a year salaries and your right to leech off workers in poor countries!

Kill economists is right on- but her name is not so cool.

Merlin's Whim
mail e-mail: merlin@hotmail.com
- Homepage: http://merlinsmaw.com