Strike while the iron's hot...

So, this week we have a lecturers' strike scheduled for Wednesday, and potentially at some point after that 'action short of a strike' - including not marking our exams. UCL apparently haven't been told this, so if they do, it's illegal. Nice of them to keep everyone up to speed, eh? The first I heard about it was from an email from the union - and not UCU, but our own students' union. Nice of the lecturers to tell us themselves - or at least it would have been.

It's all a bit disproportionate. According to this page, "Some staff are at risk of redundancy" - which is a shame, but when you put it in the context of other universities facing cuts, like Sussex, Leeds and King's, it's really not as big an issue. Those universities have announced target figures for redundancies numbering in the hundreds. For UCL's lecturers to go on strike over 'some staff' losing their jobs, what would they do if the Provost announced hundreds of jobs to go?!

Secondly, using students as a pawn in their political games is deeply unfair on us. Refusing to mark my exams - what have I done wrong?! I'm the one paying for my education, not the one who's threatening to sack them. They really need students on their side to win any fight, and pissing us off by delaying final years being able to get jobs, and other students from knowing whether they've progressed or not, or applying for internships and grad schemes, doesn't exactly put us on the same side.

Incidentally, the 'Massive defend education demo - UCL meet up' on facebook in support of the strike doesn't look particularly massive. 50 people turning up out of over 20,000 students? Yeah. Go for it. From their Q&A:

Q. Only a tiny layer of left-wing students support this action.
A. UCL Students' Union voted overwhelmingly at the AGM to oppose cuts and support the unions.

I think they'll find that the AGM didn't overtly support strikes or not marking exams. It was mainly about the Modern Languages Review, which is a completely unrelated topic. I can't see anything about it on the UCU website. Mainly since it actually only affects admin staff, who are represented by a different union. Which isn't striking. Odd, that, isn't it?

I won't be manning the picket lines in solidarity. I have exams to revise for, even if they're going to refuse to mark them.

They're at it again.

On this page, we can see the motions that are coming to the Union AGM. We're not allowed to read them yet, for some reason, but we can see the titles:

6. Chair's Action for Ratification
6.1 Emergency Motion to Support the University of Sussex Occupation

7. Motion to the AGM*
7.1 Motion to Increase UCL Library Opening Hours.
7.2 Motion on Eden Springs Water
7.3 Motion to Reclaim our Union
7.4 Pay all Union staff a living wage
7.5 Motion for the secured continuation of the UCLU Black and Minority Ethnic Students Campaign
7.6 Motion: Stop the Cuts, Defend Education, Save Modern Languages and Life Sciences

8. Special Resolutions to the AGM
8.1 Special Resolution to Allow a Second Term for Sabbatical Officers.
8.2 Special Resolution to Hold Four General Meetings a Year and to Improve Accountability.
8.3 Special Resolution to Incorporate UCLU as a Charitable Company Limited by Guarantee.

Firstly, I've no idea what 6.1 is doing there. It's not an emergency motion; so far as I know the occupation ended ages ago. I'll write about occupation tactics another time, but be warned, I don't like them.

As for motions, I don't see UCL increasing library opening hours when a) they're already open 24/7 during and preceding exams and b) there are cuts happening left, right and centre. It takes money to keep buildings open - security for a start, not to mention energy costs. I think the best we can hope for in this climate is for them not to reduce library opening hours. (See, I am anti-cuts really.)

No idea what Eden Springs water is, or why we should or shouldn't do anything about it. Well done whoever wrote that title.

Motion to reclaim our Union...from what? Last I checked there's six sabbs in charge. I even voted for a couple of them. Let's wait and see for this one.

Pay all Union staff a living wage. I think Cheesegrater said this had already been to the Union once, and was rejected because we don't have enough money. We've apparently got plenty in the bank, but why should we pay regular staff costs out of our savings - that's for doing up the bars (which I wish they'd hurry up and do - the chairs in 2nd Floor Bar are rubbish) and investing in clubs and societies. If they want to raise prices to do it, sure. But wait til I go to the Court instead and see if you can afford it then. Common sense, my dears.

7.5 is uncontentious. (Apart from a rather threatening letter the NUS Black Students Officer, who's in charge of the Black Students Campaign, sent to the Durham debating society, but that's another matter entirely.)

And finally the darling of the left, a motion about everything they can think of. What if a student doesn't agree with one of those aims? They have to vote no. There are good bits of modern languages review - a couple of my friends doing languages say using the language centre would probably be a not half bad idea.

I'll have more when we can see the motions themselves. I might write to the Democracy Officer and ask why we're not allowed yet. I'll also post about the Special Resolutions when I've read them - they're already available on the AGM page.

No such thing as a free lunch

Back last term, UCLU gave £500 to the lefties to run a Free Education Week. They ran what they described as a 'free education picnic' with the tagline of 'there is such a thing as a free lunch'.

I'm sorry, but this is simply laughable. How on earth was it a free lunch - my Union paid for it! Which means that somewhere along the line, a more worthy cause than some lefties wanting to buy themselves lunch with my money was £500 short. To put it in perspective, other campaigns last term included the fantastic Darfur Week, which highlighted the ongoing crisis in Sudan. And there were the left, choosing instead to pretend they could get lunch for free.

So here's the thing. They were trying to promote the noble cause of Free Education by giving a free lunch. Which someone - my own students' union - paid for. Guess what else? Abolish tuition fees, and someone will have to pay for that, too. In fact, they'd have to pay more, because these are top-up fees, meant to top-up the income universities already receive, not replace it. So abolish tuition fees and universities would be much worse off. To the tune of £3,500 per undergraduate student per year, to say nothing of the astronomical fees MA and PhD students pay. Oh, and while we're at it, maybe we should give 'free' education to international students too? Given that we all know they're already treated as cash cows, such a move would have a devastating effect on universities' balance sheets.

Unless, someone still pays for it. That person is, of course, the taxpayer.

There is no such thing as a free education. It has to be paid for. Doesn't matter whether it's the student, the parents, the employer or the taxpayer - someone has to, because it costs a lot. Now, they already reject the notion that the student should pay, because we're not consumers and education isn't a commodity therefore the person receiving it shouldn't pay. (Not entirely logical, but there you go.) It can't be the parents because a) it's not their education and b) it would be hideously unfair and ruin years of widening participation. I would have thought that employers would be rejected because, again, education isn't a commodity and universities aren't factories and we're not here to get jobs (no, of course not - that doesn't go against all research to the contrary, which shows students do go to university to get qualifications to get better jobs! Hell, it's why I came...).

So the taxpayer must pay.

Which, given our current massive deficit, and national debt, means that taxes will have to go up...which means I will end up paying myself, when I get a job. (If I can get a job.) So, in the end, I will pay for my education. Whether the left like it or not, there is no such thing as a free lunch. Or, for that matter, a free education.

Pro-cuts? No, just anti-left.

Like everyone else, I don't think the government's move to cut funding to Higher Education budgets are very wise. Most other countries around the world, like the US, are increasing their spending because they recognise that education is the best way to, er, educate people - and thereby making them more skilled, and help the country's (and the world's) economy recover after the downturn.

I think that there should be more investment - not by students, but by government, to make sure access is fair and as equal as possible after school. I am not, however, in power.

And nor is Malcolm Grant. I have seen a lot of 'the Provost has Mandelson's ear' around, but that's a load of tosh. Mandelson may well let the Provost tell him what's what with Higher Education, but at the end of the day it is Mandelson that is Secretary of State. Why would the vice-chancellor (for that's effectively what he is) of one of the world's top institutions beg for a budget cut? It makes no sense.

Secondly, if you're looking for a villain in this, why not Mandelson? He's the one who came back from the dead (again) to form BIS. If you want any indication of who it is that doesn't care for HE, it's certainly the creator of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. Universities, although they are part of the remit, don't appear anywhere in the department's title! I'm sure the Provost had something to do with that too, right?

I'm unhappy about all of this - the cuts, the redundancies, the potential detriment to my education. But I just don't see how that detriment is a real threat - cuts are being made to ensure UCL is solvent, and able to sustain the coming years of neglect from governments set on cutting the overall deficit by any means. Even four years ago, UCL was running at a deficit of almost £10m a year- and the planned cuts then failed to properly materialise. When your cash reserves are only £100m against those deficits, it's clear that you don't have long to act.

The choice is to spend your cash reserves sustaining current levels of activity, in which case you come out on the other side of turbulent times with literally no cash in the bank - your lecture theatres are run down, your staff underpaid, your libraries understocked as cash becomes really scarce - or you cut some activity, store some cash to make repairs, improvements even, and when government finally ups the budget again, you have a nice pot to fall back on in case they cut again. It's what LSE have done. And they're well clever with money, innit.

Debunking the left

The following quotations are from the 'Save UCL! stop [sic] the cuts, defend education' group on facebook.
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On 6th Sep 2009, UCL senior management announced cuts of at least 6%. That equates to £20m and management say it will "require cuts from staffing budgets".

Fine so far. Well, except the word 'cuts'. What UCL wanted was, pereferably, for departments to increase their income. If they couldn't do that, then they would have to reduce their cost base - which would indeed require cuts. It's a technical point, but at no point has 'management' decided that cuts are the only answer - only a last resort.

The trade unions estimate as many as 400 job cuts will have to be fought. But how can that be when UCL just raised £100m through its 'Campaign for UCL', and there are new building projects all over campus?

As I've mentioned previously, this money has been spent on revamping parts of the campus so they are fit for students and staff alike. Just look at Foster Court. As for 'new building projects all over campus', I think you'll find UCL has shelved proposals for a new building next to the Bloomsbury Theatre. All other building projects - the Sainsbury Wellcome Centre, for instance (which will replace the medics' union at Huntley Street) have external funding. The only major investment in buildings coming up is the CMRI at St Pancras.

These cuts are clearly unnecessary.

Really? Because I just debunked the reasons you thought they were. So it's hardly 'clear' any more. Especially when Mandleson has announced cuts himself. And the Tories are committed to erasing the budget deficit. Maybe we followed suit, and erased our long history of budget deficits at UCL? You know, like a sensible fiscal policy?

Whether you're a student or a staff member, this campaign is for you. This is about OUR jobs and OUR education. And if we don't fight hard this time, we could well find that management makes bigger and bigger cuts, year after year.

Absolutely. Management are committed to cutting UCL's budget to £0. They want to run us into the ground. Oh wait. That's a load of rubbish. It is about our jobs and our education - by making sure that UCL has a sensible budget that balances, with a HEFCE-recommended surplus each year to put away for future infrastructure projects and to help us through storms like this. It's what LSE has done, and what we all now wish UCL had as well.

What is happening now has direct implications for the higher education system as a whole. In making unnecessary cuts and calling for higher and higher "contributions" from students, UCL management has effectively decided that it would rather fight its own staff and students than fight central government for better and fairer system of higher education funding.

I think you'll find that you have decided to fight 'management', rather than the other way round. They are trying to secure UCL's future, and you are trying to stop them. As for calling for 'higher and higher "contributions"', the Provost has come out in favour of a graduate tax, rather than fees. Is that not telling 'central government' (as opposed to which other government in this country?) that we should have a better and fairer system of funding? Masters fees have indeed gone up, but that's because they've never really covered the cost of the course - and PGTs get no government subsidy, like undergrads.

As for the 'implications for the sector', I think the implications arise from government giving HE less money, rather than individual institutions adjusting for that change.

Let's have some common sense, UCL!

I am a concerned student at UCL. I am witnessing a resurgence of radical lefties here, and I'm worried. They are over-reacting to every little change that is being proposed to make UCL a better place - and not just that, but to keep UCL in the black for years to come.

UCL students have organised the National Convention/Campaign against Fees and Cuts (and anything else they can think of while they're at it), which is all well and good - no one wants to see students' fees rise, or cuts made to higher education budgets. I have a couple of problems though:

1. They're fighting the wrong people. While 'management' (despite being academic-led, apparently as soon as you become anything other than a poor, miserable lecturer having to teach, you're labelled as management) may well be implementing cuts before they are actually made by government, it is the government who are cutting their spending. Universities, like UCL, are merely reacting to the fact that they will have less money coming in than previously. I don't know about you, but when I get less money I spend less money. Weird, huh?
2. They support occupations. What a load of nonsense. At times like this we need our universities to listen to our students. I want to be able to go to the library 24/7 during my exams, and budget cuts put this in jeopardy. Rather than pissing authorities off by occupying lecture theatres - and consequently being ignored - we need the university to listen to our priorities, have dialogue with us and make sure the impact of cuts isn't felt where we don't want it to be. If cuts are going to be made, we need to be part of the decision, not ignored because we're throwing toys out of the pram.
3. UCL doesn't have great finances. The left are fond of talking about the Campaign for UCL which has raised £100m for UCL - but it's not like UCL are keeping this in the bank. I've been using the study space in the Science Library, which has obviously cost a lot of money. I study in Foster Court, which has thankfully been done up since my first year, when, let's face it, it was a shithole. They've been spending money on, er, us students. Their accounts from last year show less than £100m cash. Historically they have run at a deficit. When there's less money around, you need to save some. And UCL hasn't been doing that. So they need to cut their budget and start keeping some cash to pay for, I don't know, doing up more lecture theatres. I'm paying almost three and a half grand to go to the 4th best university in the world and the left think it's ok for me not to expect UCL to invest in a campus I want to study at?!
4. Unions are striking. Leeds have already voted in favour of a strike, and UCU at UCL have decided to hold a ballot too. Instead of pissing me off by cancelling teaching, refusing to mark work and invigilate exams, maybe they should, I don't know, lobby government instead? It's not like us students - who will be the only ones to feel the effect of any strike - can change the funding situation. Unless they expect us to pay more...?

Anyway, that will do for now. I want to start bringing some common sense to the debate at UCL. I think it's horrible that people are being made redundant, I do. But I think it's more important that UCL's future is secure. If education is indeed a right, we're going to need universities to do it. They can't teach if they're not solvent.