Why you SHOULD support your lecturers this Thursday

The S-word is on everyone’s lips.  It would be an understatement to say that next Thursday’s impending strike has polarised opinion across campus.  Nowhere was this more telling than on Monday evening, when Union Council voted 24-22 to support the strike, amid recriminations and accusations of undemocratic behaviour.

A quick recap: members of UCU, Unison and Unite, which between them cover most staff employed in the higher education sector, have voted for industrial action on Thursday which will mean the cancellation of lectures nationwide.  Here at Southampton, lecturers and support staff plan to picket Avenue Campus.

Predictably, lots of students are in a tizzy about this, the plans meeting with opposition not only from VP Education David Mendoza-Wolfson, but also many academic presidents.

The usual arguments—£9,000 this, £9,000 that—have been trotted out, with students essentially saying that because they’re now ‘paying the lecturers’ salary’ they want unswerving dedication from them, like something out of Downton Abbey.

But since when has the cost of your degree borne any resemblance to the amount of contact hours you get?  We pay our fees for a piece of paper and connections to middle-class employers.  It was always that way.

And that’s ignoring the fact that students don’t even pay fees, much less the lecturers’ salaries.  They are paid by the toxic debt taken on by the Student Loans Company, which in the vast majority of cases will never be paid back.

When the higher education sector is being ravaged by the coalition government and their 75% cuts to teaching grants, there was no option but to raise fees.  Who is the bad guy here?  It’s certainly not your lecturer, is it?  Especially not when most lecturers are re-organising Thursday’s lectures for different days in the interest of students’ education.

Let’s put ourselves in a lecturer’s position.  These are people who are experts in their chosen fields, who for the most part could earn a lot more money outside of academia.  As a reward for their dedication they have taken a 13% pay cut in real terms since 2008, in return for gruelling long hours, zero-hour teaching contracts, and all the rest of the abuses which employers regularly visit on their staff when they don’t have the collective willpower to demand more.

And this is not due to universities having less money.  Indeed, since the financial crash Southampton has seen fit to award the Vice-Chancellor inflation-busting pay rises year on year – notably 15.8% in 2009 and 10.3% last year for a total package of £314,600.  This comes as both lecturers and support staff take a 1% rise (that is in real terms nearly a 2% pay cut, even using official inflation figures which are obviously underspun).

The idea that lecturers are somehow bound to deliver quality to students because ‘we’re paying them’ is short-termist, transactional and worst of all smacks of entitlement.  Haven’t we learned since the financial crisis that it’s not clever to act like that any more?  For all those students who are paying £9,000, trust me, it’s in your interest to fight for the best working conditions possible for your lecturers.  You’re here for the long haul—two or three years is a long time—and it will harm your education infinitely more to have lecturers who are constantly stressed, overworked, rushed off their feet and unable to properly prepare classes or respond to students’ concerns.

A day off in the middle of term is piddling by comparison.

Now we’ve laid each side of the argument on the table, do you think it’s a good idea to strike next Thursday? Let us know in comments.