We are in support of strike action and we believe you should be too.

Firstly, we want to make it clear that we do not think that’s it’s good that we have to miss classes. We value our education just as we are sure you all do. However, it is not the lecturers who are on strike who are to be blamed for this.

The University sector has the money to solve this. They hold £40 billion in reserves. Just 3% of this money could settle the dispute. Meaning, that they could literally settle the dispute overnight. Instead, they leave our lecturers no choice but to keep striking.

These strikes are happening in response to unfair employment practices. Our lecturers are being overworked. They can not provide us with the education we deserve if they are not being compensated fairly. This debate is about understanding that our lecturers, just like us, want to be in the classrooms studying. Their working conditions are what prevents them.

We as students hold power! We can stand with our lecturers in solidarity and show that we want to be taught by professionals who are treated fairly. This strike action is organised by the UCU. A Union. Unions are what have paved the way. historically for workers right: for better working hours and for better pay. All of us are in University now but soon we will be joining the workforce. Many of us are already working along side our studies. We need unions to protect us and our jobs. The lecturers on the picket lines, just like the many other workers across the UK, are striking to provide a better future for us. Job stability and fair pay is something we all deserve!

If you speak to the lecturers who are on the picket lines you will quickly realise that they are not doing this to spite their students. They are there because they care about us. Right now, you might still be thinking that well, it’s our lectures being cancelled and it’s our education being affected. That’s true. It’s not fair and it’s frustrating. However, it’s also not fair that we’re being pitted against our lecturers. We want the same thing: a good education being provided.

The vice chancellor should be advocating for our lecturers so that they can return back to class. We can stand with out lecturers and put the pressure to act on the University College Employers Association, they are representing universities on these issues. Thus, the Student Union should also be supporting the lecturers as through this they would be supporting our best interests. Better working conditions for lecturers lead to better education for us!

So here are the facts:

In the last 30 years lecturers have not had their pay rise in level with inflation. Instead, on average they have seen a pay fall of 17.5%. Not everyone in the university is affected by this. In 2023 in London, an average salary for a lecturer is just under £40k while the average salary for a vice chancellor is 300k. The vice chancellors needs to work to protect their employees pay, especially when considering how well they are compensated.
Furthermore, 4,420 academic staff are on zero hour contracts. 90,000 staff are on insecure contracts. The lecturers are not being given stability.

What does this mean for us as students?

If staff are on these contacts they’re likely to be only paid for their time in class and an additional hour of preparation time. That means, that answering our emails and providing office hours is not something that the university sees as necessary. It shows that the university thinks that student support is not important enough to be seen as a part of a lecturers job. Additionally, our essays (depending on the word count) are valued at around £2 by the university. If lecturers spend more than 5-10 minutes on marking our assignments they end up doing it for less than minimum wage. Our lecturers should be given the proper time to read and mark our work as it is what affects us so greatly.

The university can not get away with expecting free labour from staff members.

We should not be paying as much for our education if that money is not being allocated to our teaching.

We deserve better from our university and how they choose to treat staff is a reflection of what they think we deserve and how much our education is worth to them.

So, when you go to cast your vote remember who the real enemy is.

The above statement was written by the Campaign Lead for the UCU Strike Referendum YES Campaign