Support our teachers – UEL academic staff to strike

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Support our teachers – UEL staff to strike

UCU lecturers and academic staff at the University of East London (UEL) have voted to take strike action over the next four weeks. The first day of strike action will be on Thursday October 18.

According to a UCU report, education workers at UEL are some of the most overworked in Britain. While management sits on capital reserves of 50 million pounds and VC Patrick McGhee is one of the highest paid Vice-Chancellors in Britain, students and staff struggle with overcrowded lecture halls and little contact time.

This is only the tip of the iceberg. Over the last two years more than 300 redundancies have been made, and both catering and security staff have been privatised in the run-up to the Olympics.

Resistance is mounting. Activists won support for the strike in the Students Union Council. Then students launched a campaign under the banner ‘We support our lecturers’. This campaign will raise money for the strikers, organise lecture shout-outs, petitions and organise solidarity on the picket lines over the coming weeks.

The campaign’s first meeting brought more than 30 students together including trade unionists of UNISON, UCU and UNITE.

Moses Milner from UEL EAN said: “When lecturers strike, students need to build broad-based support campaigns. We need to win an argument on campus that they are defending our education. This is not an easy argument to win – but something that is a necessity if the strike is to be successful.”

Jérémie Bedard-Wien, CLASSE executive member will be joining UEL staff on the picket lines in the morning, and speaking at the rally later that day.  “I am happy to join UCU’s picket lines in the morning. The concentrated attacks on university staff are reflective of a broader transformation of the British university system, and must be fought by students and workers alike.”

What you can do

**Please rush solidarity messages to j.mitchell[at]uel.ac.uk and cc: educationactivist[at]gmail.com

**Join the picket lines at Cyprus Station (DLR) at 8am on Thursday October 18

**Join the strike rally + eyewitness report from Quebec at Docklands Campus (Cyprus) Room EB.G.18 at 4pm (Speakers: Jérémie Bedard-Wien, CLASSE; Alfie Meadows, Jacqui Mitchell UEL UCU). Click here for FB event

**Come to the Education Activist Network Conference and listen to Jacqui Mitchell speak on the strike at UEL