Students back striking staff as regulator highlights disruption

Lecturers were joined by PhD students, undergraduates and support staff on picket lines on the first of three days of strike action over pay and pensions at more than 50 UK universities.

The University and College Union claimed that “huge” numbers of staff and students had attended picket lines and demonstrations at 58 institutions where a mandate had been secured for action following ballots held this autumn. But employers said they had anticipated that the impact across the campuses involved would be “mixed” and added that “early reports” had indicated “low levels of disruption to teaching”.

At King’s College London, where a picket line “teach-out” and rally were held outside the university’s main campus, there were speeches from lecturers, support staff, early career researchers and students.

Many pushed back at claims that the action was unfair to students whose courses had already been hit hard by the pandemic, an argument reiterated by the chief executive of the Office for Students, Nicola Dandridge, who called for universities to look at ways to mitigate any disruptions caused by the strikes, including considering fee refunds.

Pete Chonka, a lecturer in the digital humanities at King’s and UCU representative for his department, told Times Higher Education that “a lot of students have sympathy for what we’re trying to do and recognise that [our] working conditions are students’ learning conditions.

“If we’re overworked and underpaid and don’t have job security, it detracts from what we’re able to do for students in the classroom – and a large proportion of students get that message and understand.”

Alex Nightingale, an administrator at King’s and chair of the local Unison branch, a union that represents many university support workers, said in a speech that some staff had been “making themselves ill trying not to let their students down, and this is why it is so hurtful when people say that staff mustn’t take industrial action because of the student experience.

“Without the goodwill of the staff and all the extra time they put in, the student experience would not be what it is,” she said.

Students attending the picket line, and also those nearby, were also broadly supportive of the action.

Mauricio Fortuna, who has just graduated from a master’s course at King’s and who spoke at the teach-out in support of staff, told THE that there would always be a variety of opinions among students. The level of tuition fees in England also meant that it was sometimes “a lot harder for students to come out in support of the strikes when they see it as money that they’re losing”.

But if anything, he continued, the tough experience faced by students during the pandemic had given them more empathy for staff because of the struggles they had also faced in shifting to online learning.

“We had the staff working as hard as they ever have but still not supported enough, and at the same time students went through the same thing. Anyone who had to prepare themselves for teaching online, for both students and staff, knew that we were all completely overburdened,” he said.

Two second-year King’s undergraduates outside the institution’s entrance nearby made similar points.

“Personally, I agree with it…in the sense that they are not paid for the hours they work. Most undergraduates agree that seminar leaders work really hard and don’t get enough credit for what they do,” said one, who identified herself only as Bella.

She added that although the action did not have great timing because of the work students had to complete, striking staff were still going out of their way to offer help by email and online.

“They appreciate the fact they have got to strike against the leadership, but…they don’t want us to miss out,” Bella added.

Her fellow student Tilly said it was “hard that they keep having to do the same strikes to make the same point. I think it is time for universities to take proper action,” adding that “I feel like they went through a similar thing” with Covid. “It’s hard to teach online.”

The action, which lasts until 3 December, could be followed up in the new year with more strikes, a prospect that UCU general secretary Jo Grady said was “very real” if managers didn’t “wake up and address the very modest demands of staff”.

But Raj Jethwa, chief executive of the Universities and Colleges Employers Association, said that while it respected “employees’ right to take action”, it was “unrealistic and misleading” for the UCU to ask members at some institutions to lose pay in pursuit of an “unrealistic” pay demand.

simon.baker@timeshighereducation.com