Many thanks to everyone who attended the activists meeting last night. We had over 120 people there, including UCU General Secretary Sally Hunt, who addressed the meeting. After an excellent discussion, we agreed the following:
1) Tuesday 26 January. UCU lobby of parliament. Staff and students from across London to assemble 1pm King’s College London, Strand entrance. Leaflet downloadable to the right*.
2) Wednesday 27 January. Activists committee, made up on one member from UCU, Unite, Unison from each institution, and one student from each institution, to meet 6.30pm, KCL. Room details to follow.
3) Saturday 27 February. Teach-in for staff and students across London, in defence of education against the market, to be held at KCL and organized by the above committee.
4) Saturday 20 March. We support the call for a national demonstration in defence of education and will use all available channels to win backing for this from the appropriate trade unions.
In solidarity,
Jim Wolfreys
President, KCL UCU
* Text in leaflet may need resizing on different computers.
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Monday, January 11, 2010
London-wide HE activists meeting with UCU General Secretary Sally Hunt
20 January, 6.30pm, King’s College London,
Strand K6.29
Strand K6.29
Peter Mandelson’s announcement just before Christmas that university funding in England is to be cut by £398m for 2010-11 has raised the stakes in the fight to defend higher education. For London Colleges the need for coordinated action, already urgent, has now become imperative. We need a massive turnout of staff and students for the lobby of parliament on 26 January and a strategy for defending jobs in HE.
To this end we are calling on all staff and student activists across London to come to King’s on Wednesday 20 January to organise for the 26th and beyond.
(This meeting was originally planned for 19th January but Sally Hunt was unable to make this date. Given the scale of the crisis in HE we felt it was important for her to attend).
Jim Wolfreys
President, KCL UCU
Saturday, January 2, 2010
Report on Defend Jobs, Defend Education – London activist meeting:
Called by King’s College London UCU – Supported by No Cuts at King’s & London Region UCU
Over 90 staff and student activists from universities across London and beyond met at King’s College on Tuesday 15th December to discuss ways of giving a united focus to the fight to defend jobs and education across the capital. Many activists had come straight from the 500 strong protest against cuts at London Metropolitan University (which resulted in the entire board of governors resigning later that evening!). Institutions represented included: UCL, Westminster Uni, Westminster College, London College of Communication, Tower Hamlets College, Queen Mary University, Goldsmiths, London Metropolitan, Sussex, King’s College, SOAS, University of the Arts London, and others.
The meeting was introduced by Jim Wolfreys, President of King’s UCU, who explained that it had been called in response to an escalating crisis in higher education caused by government attacks on the one hand and the desire, on the other, of HE management to use the present financial situation as a pretext to restructure their institutions. Staff and students across London needed to join together in defence of education or the situation would fragment, leaving management and the government a free hand to wreck higher education.
A number of speakers stressed the scale of the cuts being imposed, with some facing redundancy themselves. There was a general feeling that we can no longer wait, but that we must act now to stop these cuts. Richard from Tower Hamlets UCU told the meeting how his college went on all out strike for four weeks and successfully fought off all compulsory redundancies, including saving 300 vital ESOL places. He said that the solidarity from trade unionists across London and beyond, who raised over £30,000, was crucial in their victory. During the meeting, Joel from King’s UCU raised a collection and circulated a Christmas card in support of IT workers at Fujitsu due to strike on the 18th December over cuts and attacks on their pensions.
Jesse from UCL UCU, said that because principals and vice-chancellors meet to plan together, we must do the same. In order to organise and co-ordinate further actions an open organising meeting was suggested, provisionally called the ‘London Education Action Committee’, on the 19th January. All those interested in attending should contact: ucu@kcl.ac.uk
The meeting agreed to build and support the mass lobby of parliament called by the national UCU union on the 26th of January, mobilising students and lecturers to gather at the Strand and march on parliament. The meeting also decided to call a rally at King’s in the first few weeks of February to build the campaign and to challenge the marketisation of our education system.
Quoting the demonstrators at London Met, one activist said of the university management and the new movement: “They are the past, we are the future”.
Over 90 staff and student activists from universities across London and beyond met at King’s College on Tuesday 15th December to discuss ways of giving a united focus to the fight to defend jobs and education across the capital. Many activists had come straight from the 500 strong protest against cuts at London Metropolitan University (which resulted in the entire board of governors resigning later that evening!). Institutions represented included: UCL, Westminster Uni, Westminster College, London College of Communication, Tower Hamlets College, Queen Mary University, Goldsmiths, London Metropolitan, Sussex, King’s College, SOAS, University of the Arts London, and others.
The meeting was introduced by Jim Wolfreys, President of King’s UCU, who explained that it had been called in response to an escalating crisis in higher education caused by government attacks on the one hand and the desire, on the other, of HE management to use the present financial situation as a pretext to restructure their institutions. Staff and students across London needed to join together in defence of education or the situation would fragment, leaving management and the government a free hand to wreck higher education.
A number of speakers stressed the scale of the cuts being imposed, with some facing redundancy themselves. There was a general feeling that we can no longer wait, but that we must act now to stop these cuts. Richard from Tower Hamlets UCU told the meeting how his college went on all out strike for four weeks and successfully fought off all compulsory redundancies, including saving 300 vital ESOL places. He said that the solidarity from trade unionists across London and beyond, who raised over £30,000, was crucial in their victory. During the meeting, Joel from King’s UCU raised a collection and circulated a Christmas card in support of IT workers at Fujitsu due to strike on the 18th December over cuts and attacks on their pensions.
Jesse from UCL UCU, said that because principals and vice-chancellors meet to plan together, we must do the same. In order to organise and co-ordinate further actions an open organising meeting was suggested, provisionally called the ‘London Education Action Committee’, on the 19th January. All those interested in attending should contact: ucu@kcl.ac.uk
The meeting agreed to build and support the mass lobby of parliament called by the national UCU union on the 26th of January, mobilising students and lecturers to gather at the Strand and march on parliament. The meeting also decided to call a rally at King’s in the first few weeks of February to build the campaign and to challenge the marketisation of our education system.
Quoting the demonstrators at London Met, one activist said of the university management and the new movement: “They are the past, we are the future”.
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