Flash Theory

The AUT marking boycott is approaching the end of its second month, and what does one receive from the Principal, but an email targeted at the AUT. He writes, "I have considerable sympathy for you in this predicament, and I deplore the actions of those AUT members at the University of St Andrews which are overtly designed to threaten actual damage to your education and possibly to your future career." Well, as I replied to him, I have considerable sympathy for his position as the Principal of the University of St Andrews, but I deplore the anti-Union sentiments he expresses in his email. Presumably he is on the side of the Vice Chancellors of UK universities, who have abandoned their commitment to raise lecturer salaries, using money from top-up fees in England, and from taxation in Scotland. Lecturers were assured that they would receive pay increases and improvements in working conditions, but this has been flatly refused them. They had no choice but to strike.

The Principal also writes "as you may know, this is a national dispute which did not begin in St Andrews and will not be resolved by anything that happens in St Andrews." Just imagine if every university said this - there would be no strike! Then again the Principal presumably opposes any kind of industrial action that hampers the universities' spending priorities, whatever those might be. More pay rises for him and his buddies perhaps? It looks like it - the NUS has highlighted the hypocrisy of the Vice Chancellors, who have "awarded themselves a 25% pay increase while their staff languish on low pay!" Is it just me, or does a tendency to raise one's own pay seem a ubiquitous feature of positions of power? The NUS stands in solidarity with the AUT, a position I strongly support. Unions have to stick together to support each other's actions, especially when they as closely linked as university staff and students.

This strike seems justifiable to everyone; broken promises, low pay, and stubborn management are here combined. However, my personal position is that I favour almost all strike action. As long as our system is so superbly unequal in both pay and power, strikes must be used to try to bring the big men down, and raise ourselves up. Workers must be conscious of their position in a system of exploitation, and of their power to change that system for the better. Workers unite! Strike! Strike! Strike!
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# posted by effusions : 3:46 PM