Connolly Youth Movement supports the UCU, Unite and Unison
university staff strike on the 3rd December and urges students to show
solidarity with the strike by joining them on the picket line. University staff
have seen their pay cut by 13% over the past 4 years while the cost of living
has continued to rise. At the same time staff are being asked to undertake
increasing workloads to the detriment of their health and teaching. Around 30%
of staff are working over 50 hours a week and a large proportion of higher
education institutions are using precarious zero hours contracts. At the same
time over half of vice-chancellors are receiving salaries of over £242,000. The
conditions imposed on university staff have a direct impact on students.
Overworked and underpaid staff's teaching ability is reduced
and so the quality of education students receive mirrors the working conditions
of those that teach them. This is happening at the same time as higher
education tuition fees, and their associated debts, are dramatically increasing
and educational grants decimated. Both students and university staff have a
common struggle against austerity, the destruction of our education services,
the rights of who those who work within it and young people's futures. We do
not have to accept these conditions which have been thrust upon us by those who
seek to profit from them. Through collective action workers and students can
demand social change for a system that supports a decent standard of living for
workers and an education system geared towards supporting students rather than
market forces.
Strike Information
Queens University, Belfast: Rally at 1pm at QUB Student
Union University of Ulster: Picketing at Campus entrances throughout the day.
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