Solidarity

UNISON members, together with their colleagues from UCU and Unite, are striking today to try to get an improvement on the employers' 1% pay offer.

For more info click here.

My friend and fellow activist Jan is a workplace rep for UNISON (she works in the library at the Art School - now pompously calling itself Norwich University College of the Arts) and here she is explaining to some students what the strike is about.

Many of them had no idea at all. But why should they? They've got their own battles to fight. Which I suspect will become harder if (when?) the loan book of the Student Finance Company gets sold on.

A friend was at a Union meeting recently in their place of work (a well known academic institution that shall remain nameless) and one of the participants suggested that instead of having the blurb on the bottom of their emails saying what a wonderful place this institution was, it should perhaps say something like:

'a wonderful place to study where students are charged the earth, staff are treated like shit, zero hours contracts are commonplace and where essential admin support has been cut to the bone. What's not to like?'