The reckless Edinburgh University management is planning huge cuts to staff, but the strikers have widespread support, even from Tories, reports Jamal Elaheebocus
Hundreds of staff and students braved freezing temperatures to protest outside the Scottish Parliament on Wednesday, at the end of three days of strike action by UCU members at the University of Edinburgh.
Staff are on strike over management proposals to cut a huge £92 million in staffing, which could lead to 1,800 job losses. This is despite Edinburgh sitting on £3.1 billion in reserves.
Staff were on strike during fresher’s week in September and took three further days of action this week as the dispute continues. Management was, until Wednesday, unwilling to budge but have now proposed no compulsory redundancies for the rest of the academic year while negotiations continue.
Striking UCU members were joined by a large number of students, including the student-union president and vice president for education. They highlighted how international students are being used as cash-cows by university management and that staff’s working conditions are students’ learning conditions.
A representative of Unite the Union at Edinburgh, which also balloted members but was just short of the turnout threshold, voiced support for the UCU strike on behalf of his union. A Unison rep at the university also spoke in support of the strike; their members are currently being balloted, alongside UCU, EIS and Unite members, in the national pay dispute against the measly 1.4% pay rise offered to university staff by the employer’s body UCEA.
The senior leadership of the University of Edinburgh, including principal Peter Mathieson who earns over £400,000 and has claimed tens of thousands in expenses in the last year, have behaved so egregiously that two Tory MSPs even spoke at the rally.
Miles Briggs and Douglas Ross, both on Holyrood’s education committee and the latter the former Tory leader, both spoke in support of striking workers and called out senior management. Ross is pictured below; you have to see it to believe it!
Douglas Ross at the UCU rally in Edinburgh.
The education committee has previously called Mathieson in for questioning; his performance left a lot to be desired. The committee has also called in management at the University of Dundee; both sets of bosses are responsible for serious leadership failures and financial mismanagement, the consequences of which are being passed onto ordinary workers.
Ross, the convener of the education committee, announced at the rally that the committee would be inviting union representatives from the University of Edinburgh to give their side of the story, an announcement which was well received by the crowd.
Other MSPs from the Liberal Democrats and Labour spoke in support of striking workers.
The significant turnout is a sign of the anger felt by staff and students at the reckless plans being proposed by senior leadership at Edinburgh. There is a clear determination that these cuts must be stopped. The stakes are high, and it could be felt in the mood of the demo; the results of these disputes may have significant implications for the higher-education sector in the future.
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