SUSU Is Wrong To Support The Lecturer Strike

Last week the unions representing uni lecturers (UCU, Unison and Unite) voted in favour of industrial action on the 31^st October – a move which will only disadvantage us as students.

SUSU’s Union Council narrowly (and foolishly) voted to support the lecturers’ strike with 24 votes for and 22 against (2 abstained), which is hardly representative of the 23,000 students at Southampton. Despite barely several minutes of debate from each side, voters were rushed into agreeing to a move which has been poorly thought out.

SUSU – a students’ union – is supposed to stand up for its members but this agreement has only betrayed them. If lecturers refuse to go to work and not teach us next Thursday then SUSU has its priorities completely wrong. Why should we (especially now two-thirds of undergrads pay £9000 a year) have to pay for lectures and sessions which we can’t attend? It comes as no surprise that the Union lefties want to support other union strikes but missing the point of their organisation is unacceptable.

But as SUSU voted to support the strikes, what action does our students’ union propose? Well, er, nothing. It seems that the cycle of student lacktivism is back in full swing from campaigning against £9k fees to now supporting lecturer strikes to show that so-called solidarity really does achieve nothing.

In a wet fart of an excuse, it was argued that the one day strike would not have a “significant impact” on students, but it has been estimated by VP Education, David Mendoza-Wolfson (who spoke against the strike support) that from the largest 93 lectures (of the 1015 cancelled), there will be 18,350 instances affected. That’s pretty significant in an age where contact hours are already criticised.

Only 61% of UCU lecturers voted for a strike despite 77% voting for less specific industrial action, whereas Unison’s members narrowly voted in favour of a strike at 54.4%. Unite voted 64.2% in favour. However 378,250 people work in HE where only 29,538 (7.8%) voted from the three unions, only 17,800 (4.7%) voted in favour of strike action. Less than 1 in 20 voted to strike, a figure which can be (like SUSU’s own Union Council) disregarded as representative.

Unless the higher education unions see sense and make a U-turn on their strike action, us students will not benefit from this, and neither will lecturers.

Do you think it’s a good idea to strike next Thursday? Let us know in comments.