Defend Education – A Call to Arms
The whirlwind of cuts facing higher education is one of those things its hard to get your head round. The idea of entire departments, even colleges, closing, is one that few people have totally got to grips with. Richard wrote last week about the issues at King’s. Estimates vary wildly about how much they want to slash, but everyone knows its going to be big.
One of the reasons its hard to get your head round it is that its currently selective. There are a few key battlegrounds right now, Leeds, London Met, King’s and Sussex. But beyond that there is a sense of quiet before the storm. This has to change. If we want to win these fights against cuts it needs to be a national movement. This is why the decision of the UCU to ballot at a national level is incredibly important. However, this alone is not enough. We need to be sharing the examples of Tower Hamlets, where they won. We need to be raising support for the strikers at Leeds and King’s. Leeds lecturers ran an exemplary campaign for their strike ballot, achieving a 66% vote for action on a 64% turnout. Other sites need to hear what they did.
Students and staff need to be united on this. It is therefore important that students reclaim their unions. We cannot again have a situation where students’ unions attempt to scab on their lecturers. A case has to be made that united action is the only way forward, and this is easy to do.
On campuses where there are no cuts, why not take a collection sheet for the Leeds strikers round your class or office? It’ll raise the mood and raise the issues. At Essex a group of us have launched this pledge, as an attempt to gather a network of people ready to resist the cuts when they come. Anyone who wants to know where next should be at the education activists network conference next weekend in London.
We need local and national networks of resistance, and we need them now. The only way to get them is getting organised, sharing stories, and building solidarity.
