Breaking: UCU protesters have occupied the VC’s room in the Foundation Building

Today at 10:38am, the Liverpool Guild website released an update on the UCU strikes, stating that a group of students have occupied the VC's suite on the fifth floor of the Foundation Building.

The students, acting independently under the name of 'Liverpool Students for Pensions', are being fully supported by the Liverpool Guild of Students.

In a press release, the group have set out a list of demands including that Janet Beer, President of UUK, guarantees "the maintenance of defined benefits for all members of the Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS) in any negotiations with the UCU".

The second immediate demand reads as follows: "We demand that Janet Beer, as Vice-Chancellor of the University of Liverpool, attend a meeting at Mountford Hall in the Liverpool Guild of Students open to all staff and students so that she may be held accountable for her actions in this dispute."

Additionally, the group mention a "wider vision of a free and liberated Higher Education system", with further long-term goals of the protest, including a rent cap for student accommodation and an end to the use of zero-hour contracts by the university.

Sam, a second year Geography student at University of Liverpool had this to say: "I fully support the students occupying the foundation building office, and think it’s brilliant that students not just lecturers are standing up to university vice chancellors up and down the country."

For more information, you can follow the group on Facebook or Twitter and read the Guild's release concerning the matter here.