Live coverage: LSE UCU strikes, pickets kick off

By Anya Saund and Niina Leppilahti

On 24, 25, and 30 November, 70,000 members of staff across 150 UK universities participated in strikes, the biggest to date. The UCU’s demands pertain to improving pay, alleviating workload, closing gender and ethnic pay gaps, as well as ending casualisation. The Beaver interviewed LSE staff at the picket lines throughout the week.

Professor David Lewis and Associate Professor Tim Hildebrandt, who were picketing in front of the NAB, echoed the UCU’s demands especially in terms of pay and equality. The UCU is demanding a minimum pay increase of £3349 for all members. According to Professor Hildebrandt, in real terms, LSE staff are currently dealing with a loss in income, due to high inflation. Professor Lewis drew particular attention to the pension issue, noting that ‘‘a pension is not just a gift you receive at the end of your working life. Rather, it is something you work towards for years.’’

Both emphasised that they were striking to ensure that others can enter into the profession under “fair and non-exploitative conditions.’’ Steven*, an Assistant Professor, noted that at the current rate, he will not be able to afford to retire.

Shakuntala Banaji, Professor of Media, Culture and Social Change, who has worked at LSE for 12 years, told The Beaver about how the “USS predicted that there was going to be a shortfall in the pension pot, predictions based on mistaken figures, and now they have had a £5 billion profit and they are still saying they are going to cut pensions.”

In addition to pension cuts, junior staff members are also disproportionately affected by casualisation.

Dr. Dave Ashby and Lawrence*, an LSE100 fellow and an LSE100 Professor, respectively, lamented the casualisation of higher education. Lawrence said that management are “chopping up roles”: “When a permanent member of a teaching staff retires, the role is divided into three part-time temporary positions.” This “uberification” of universities preys upon vocational educators, for the sake of profit.

LSE 100 fellows, Mark* and Dr. Nina Vindum Rasmussen were among those striking outside the library. Mark told The Beaver that the impact of increased workloads is what affects him most – describing his current responsibilities as ‘‘exhausting.’’ Dr. Ashby spoke about how he offers unpaid additional office hours around assessment time because he wants to “provide as much help as he can.”

According to Dr. Vindum Rasmussen, the workload and precarious working conditions mean that, despite her love for academia, it ‘‘just doesn’t feel sustainable in some ways […] Even if it’s very specific issues we’re fighting [for] on the picket line today, it feels like it is a much, much bigger fight.’’

Dr. Lukas Slothuus, a visiting fellow at the Department of Government, was also picketing in front of the Centre Building on Wednesday. Dr. Slothuus made suggestions as to what LSE management could do. He said that whilst payment and pensions agreements are decided nationally, ‘‘LSE can put pressure on the national bodies to make those changes.” He suggested that the LSE management can ‘‘abolish those short term like and fixed term contracts […] they have the power to do that. They could just say ‘we will not hire anyone on less than a three year contract’ or ‘we will phase out insecure contracts’.’’

Dr. Slothuus recognised the inconvenience and the disruption that the strike causes for students. He commented, ‘‘If there was some other strategy that didn’t affect students that we could take, we would totally take it. But I think it’s really important for students to recognise that the ones who have the power to resolve this dispute are not staff […] The management could resolve this right away. They could […] just acknowledge that actually they don’t need to cut the pensions. They could give us a pay rise and then they could end this disruption.”

The Beaver asked strikers for their views on the possibility for change. Lawrence suggested that it may be possible for “things to deteriorate even further and to reach critical bottom for change to happen but… something has to give”. Professor Banaji said that LSE UCU negotiated with LSE’s management so that when “they cut [our] pay for strike days this goes into a student hardship fund, which not all institutions agreed to do’’.

Professor Banaji also said that “students and teachers together are much stronger.” This sentiment was echoed by Lawrence* who said that “upping student and staff solidarity” would be of huge significance. Dr. Ashby also stressed that it’s the “students and staff who make the university”; that we need to jointly combat this “commodification of education” as he doesn’t want to “go into the classroom to sell a product.”

A way to effect change is to demand transparency on how our fees are distributed from management. Staff spoken to by The Beaver said that we have their full support in requesting fee refunds because of a “loss of experience”, as they are also striking to improve our quality of education. It is the unity between students and teachers which the UCU believes will have a powerful effect on leadership.

The Beaver found that striking staff in general are pleased with the level of support shown so far by the student body as it is only with this solidarity that the LSE will listen to them. The UCU has said that disruption can be avoided if employers act fast and make improved offers. If they don’t, strike action will escalate in the New Year alongside a marking and assessment boycott.

*Names in this article were changed to preserve anonymity.