Friday 18-11-2022 - 16:24

As you may already know, University and College Union (UCU) voted to strike for 3 days: 

• Thursday 24th November  
• Friday 25th November  
• Wednesday 30th November   

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On these days, striking staff will not be working, which will lead to cancellations of all their scheduled lectures and tutorials. Alongside this, industrial action short of a strike will happen from Wednesday 23rd November, which involves working exactly to their contracted hours, and not covering missed work due to absent colleagues or work missed from strike action.  

All Abertay students should have received an email, with information from Becky Sharman, Abertay UCU branch president, explaining the strike action from a union perspective.  

It’s very important to point out that the dates for strike action were a national decision – it's not ideal that one of the dates falls on the day of Winter Graduation.  Being worried about the impact of strike action on your education is completely understandable. Hopefully all students can understand the motives behind the strike action and consider giving their support with the wider aim of these issues being resolved before they escalate further. 

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The Students’ Association had a productive meeting with the Abertay UCU branch President, who walked us through both the Abertay perspective on striking, and the national campaign. It was clear from that meeting that the impact on students was an important consideration, but that staff workload conditions are unsustainable, and that’s already having a massive negative impact on how they can support students during their university education.  

After this meeting, a motion was discussed at Student Representative Council, proposed by Lauryn (Vice President) and seconded by Liv (President).  

Student Representative Council resolved:  

• To support Abertay UCU strike action!  
• There was a valuable discussion with our Division and Community Reps about how this might impact students, especially through cancelled classes and the financial impact of university spending on salaries increasing. 
• We also talked about how important student support can be – students can’t stop the strike action as it’s already in motion, but the symbolic power of students showing solidarity with staff can boost their power in discussions with the university and government.  

Why consider supporting strikes? 

• Staff workload and working conditions are unsustainable, and this impacts the quality of teaching that students receive.  
• National strike action, both in the higher education sector and in other industries, are aiming to improve pay and working conditions that will impact current students when they graduate into the UK job market. This is especially relevant, when considering UCU strike action, for any students who want to work as an academic. 
• This strike action is likely the start of a wider national campaign, therefore high support for these strikes will hopefully encourage universities and governments to work together to meet the union’s demands, which would mean less disruption for students in the future.  
• If UCU’s conditions are not met from this strike action, this will likely escalate in 2023, with a potential marking and assessment boycott.    

Things you can do as a student to support striking staff:  

• Visit staff on the picket line outside Kydd Building! Share your concerns and hear about things from their perspective. 
• Write to your local Member of Scottish Parliament (MSP) – reductions in staff numbers (and therefore increased staff workload) is closely linked to the government grant that Abertay receives being cut in real terms (meaning it hasn't increased as fast as inflation).  
• This is an opportunity for you to write to your local MSP to ask that they support an increase in block grants for universities.  
• Find your local MSP here: https://www.theyworkforyou.com/msp/  
• Everyone in Scotland has 1 constituency MSP, and 7 regional MSPs – lots of politicians to talk to! 

We support NUS UK and NUS Scotland’s position: “staff working conditions are student’s learning conditions”