Statement on Birkbeck College Students’ Union Position on UCU Strike
Members of the University and College Union (UCU), including the local Birkbeck branch, voted last term for a continuing mandate to strike and for action short of strike. They are engaged in a sector-wide dispute over several key issues, including pensions, overwork, equality, pay and casualisation.
They have recently announced a third round of strikes from Monday 21st March to Friday 25th March on the above issues. Our executive committee, comprised of your elected officers, recently met to discuss our position on the strikes, and unanimously came to the decision to once again stand in solidarity with striking staff.
We deeply regret that the intractability of the employers’ representatives and the difficult conditions under which staff are forced to work have made ongoing strikes an inevitability, and are extremely concerned about the impacts that this will have on students.
We came to our decision to stand in solidarity with striking staff based on a number of factors. Firstly, we recognise that the working conditions of staff directly impact their ability to teach, which in turn impact upon our education.
Many of the concerns that we hear about from students, such as delayed marking and poor communications, are linked to overwork, for example. When staff win improvements to their working conditions, we all win.
Secondly, we recognise that many postgraduate research students are members of both the Students’ Union and our local UCU branch, and are deeply affected by the issues at stake in these strikes, including overwork, pay inequality, and casualisation.
We stand in solidarity with those students and will continue to fight alongside UCU to create better working conditions for those students, and for their right to be recognised as essential knowledge creators and properly compensated for their work.
Thirdly, as an executive committee, we are held accountable by elected student council officers and any students who wish to attend those meetings. We currently have a three-year mandate that expires in November 2022 from student council to support our local union branches, including UCU and UNISON, and this also factored into our decision.
Any students can bring a motion to council to continue this support beyond November, or to change the SU’s stance on this issue, but only elected members of council may vote on the motion under our current by-laws. All students may also attend our annual general meeting, which will be held on Wednesday 27th April at 3pm.
Lastly, many of the issues that UCU are campaigning on, such as equality, are based on shared concerns. As a union, we stand in solidarity with all those fighting to improve conditions on campus and for equality in general.
We recognise that the impacts of these strikes will be felt most keenly by the most marginalised and vulnerable members of the student community, and will work to provide support to those students during this time.
We will also continue to support students who face additional academic pressures via our advice service, and have been in contact with the College to hold them to account on issues such as refunds for students impacted by the strikes and to ensure that students are not examined on material that they have not been taught.
Further information:
Please find our strike FAQs here: https://www.birkbeckunion.org/articles/ucu-strikes-faq-s.
You can find more information about our impartial, free and confidential Advice Service here: https://www.birkbeckunion.org/bbksu-advice.
To get in contact with us, please send an email to studentsunion@bbk.ac.uk and we’ll get back to you as soon as possible.
Birkbeck College recently agreed a joint statement with the local UCU branch calling for employers representatives to return to the negotiating table and for a new, more accurate pension fund valuation that recognises the unique nature of the higher education sector.
Read our previous statement here: https://www.birkbeckunion.org/articles/statement-of-solidarity-with-striking-ucu-members.
Disclosure: one of Birkbeck’s student leaders, Naomi Smith, is a member of the local UCU branch.
