Workers Revolutionary Party - Rock-solid college strike!

The News Line: News Wednesday, 11 November 2015 Rock-solid college strike!

Lecturers arriving for the mass rally at the Emmanuel Centre in Westminster – they are demanding a rise in pay

‘THIS is a national one-day pay strike. We haven’t had a pay rise for six years – which represents a 17 per cent pay cut,’ UCU Islington College committee member Richard Warren told News Line yesterday.

Every college in the country was shut down yesterday as the lecturers engaged in a 100 per cent rock-solid strike. By 8.00am in the morning strong pickets had formed outside every college. In London, after ensuring the colleges were shut, staff made their way to Westminister for a mass rally inside the Emmanuel Centre at 1.00pm.

And in Birmingham there was a mass rally at 11.00am at the Midland Institute. UCU general secretary Sally Hunt told the Westminster lunch time strike rally: ‘You are right to have taken this day to say enough is enough. ‘In adult learning there is a slaughter job going on. This is why we are out on strike today.’

Earlier, on the picket line at Islington Centre of Business, Arts and Technology, UCU Committee member Richard Warren spoke to News Line. ''Our campaign is based on the reasonable demand for an extra £1 an hour,’ he said.

Lambeth College also had a strong picket where UCU member Hannah Meese told News Line: ‘The public sector is facing £20bn cuts under this government while MPs have given themselves a rise of 11 per cent. People who access FE are often people who are disadvantaged or vulnerable in some way and in many cases it’s a second chance for them to catch up. We should do an all-out strike of everyone in the country to bring down this government.’

Julia Roberts, joint Branch Secretary of Lambeth UCU, told News Line: ‘Today’s strike is getting a good turnout and it’s been a long time coming. While there’s a pay freeze for lecturers, many vice-principals are getting £200,000 a year.’

‘It’s outrageous what this government is doing to education’ said striking Hammersmith UCU rep John Ruffle on the picket line at Hammersmith College. ‘Their policies are creating chaos in the colleges, everything is about the profit motive.

‘Management is seeing students as a source of revenue, as fodder for big corporations. Lecturers are getting unprecedented workloads yet courses are being cut. At Hammersmith a whole course hast just been scrapped – it’s letting students down. Whole colleges have the threat of closure hanging over them, like our site at Acton. We have to make a stand, that’s what this national strike is all about.’