Students: get organised, unite with staff and be part of campus battles!

Adam Powell-Davies, Socialist Students national organiser

In April, the University and College Union (UCU) launched a marking and assessment boycott at 145 universities across the UK. University staff are striking for pay amidst the cost-of-living crisis, and to defend terms and conditions as university bosses try to squeeze as much as possible from them. And the quality of our education has suffered as a result. Socialist Students supports the strike and has shown solidarity at picket lines up and down the country.

Two months on from the start of the marking and assessment boycott, university students now have a clearer picture of how the boycott impacts us. At Durham University, hundreds of students have been told that they won’t progress to their next year of study. Queen’s University Belfast has announced that 1,200 students may not be awarded degrees this summer. And at the University of Cambridge, hundreds of politics and sociology students won’t receive their exam results until October.

Many students affected by the boycott have been left frustrated and demoralised. As things stand, thousands of students could be prevented from moving on to the next stage in their life, such as the next year of their course, a job or internship, or graduate study.

While university managements have been eager to blame striking staff for the disruption to students’ lives, some students speaking on social media and in the national press have challenged this narrative. They have correctly pointed out that the onus is on the employers’ association, UCEA, to meet UCU’s demands on pay and conditions, and end the current dispute.

Any university that claims it can’t afford these demands should open its books to inspection by the campus trade unions and democratically elected worker and student representatives. If a university genuinely can’t afford to give its staff at least what the UCU demands, then the government should step in to make up the difference, with money given to universities under trade union oversight.

At a few universities, vice-chancellors have joined students and staff in calling on UCEA to re-enter negotiations with the UCU nationally. This shows that the marking and assessment boycott is having an effect.

Although many vice-chancellors have finally been forced to admit the ‘broken’ nature of university funding, none have come out and called for what is necessary: fully funded, free, higher education.

Meanwhile, at most other universities, managements have dug in and cobbled together a whole range of ‘mitigations’ aimed at allowing students to progress without the usual assessment-based checks and balances.

No doubt, some students will be grateful for these measures. But we say it’s the university unions who should hold the decision-making powers over mitigations, in discussion with elected student representatives. Mitigations shouldn’t be left in the hands of the bosses, who are attempting to drive a wedge between students and staff.

As the marking and assessment boycott continues, many students will feel caught in the middle between the UCU and the university bosses. That’s why Socialist Students says that students have to get organised ourselves, to unite with staff in a mass campaign to fully fund our universities and win free education.

As long as university funding is decided by capitalist governments looking for spending to cut and avenues of profit to open up, our universities will always be at risk of attack. That’s why Socialist Students fights for a socialist society where we, the working-class majority, democratically plan where resources should go in order to meet people’s needs – including the need for a high-quality, fulfilling and free lifelong education.

Read more of our demands at the bottom of this page

PhD students: back the boycott!

Bristol Socialist Students

University of Bristol Socialist Students Society has been made aware of attempts by university management to undermine the University and College Union (UCU)’s marking and assessment boycott. PhD students have been offered £18.85 per hour to mark first and second-year undergraduate assessments, almost double the rate of pay usually offered to PhD students who undertake teaching and marking duties alongside their studies.

Bristol Socialist Students wholeheartedly condemns this latest move by university management to both undercut the ongoing industrial action being taken by staff in UCU and to drive a wedge between staff and students. We call on PhD students at the University of Bristol to refuse to take part in any marking whilst the boycott is ongoing. Instead, they should join UCU, which PhD students can do for free, and stand in solidarity with striking staff on the next day of strike action on Friday 16 June.

We also recognise that this is an attempt to persuade striking PhD students, who are among some of the lowest-paid staff at the University and are employed often on short-term, unstable contracts, to break the boycott.

As students ourselves, we understand the impact a marking and assessment boycott has on undergraduate students. However, we recognise that this disruption is due, not to those members of staff exercising their democratic right, but to the failure of Bristol university management and the Universities and Colleges Employers Association to properly and sincerely negotiate with the UCU over pay and working conditions.

However, we also recognise that even if the current UCU dispute is settled soon, it won’t mark the end of the disruption to our higher education. Students at every level are feeling the sharp end of the cost-of-living crisis. The Office for National Statistics found last year that 40% of students are studying at home more to save money. A fifth are attending lectures remotely. An additional survey by the Sutton Trust found that 18% of students have avoided buying educational resources needed for their courses. But it isn’t only in the realm of study that students are feeling the cost-of-living squeeze. 11% of students now use food banks. 28% reported skipping meals to save on food costs, 47% are going out less with friends, and 14% are travelling to campus for free energy use.

So for students, while building support for the current UCU and Unison strikes on the university campuses is vital, this must be linked to a mass campaign against the student cost-of-living crisis and the fight for free education for all – for publicly funded universities and an end to marketisation.

Socialist Students says:

• Support the UCU marking and assessment boycott – PhD students should not undertake any marking whilst the boycott is ongoing
• No punitive pay deductions for staff taking part in the boycott
• Exam mitigations shouldn’t be left in the hands of the bosses. Fight for trade union control of mitigations, in discussion with elected student representatives
• Organise joint student-staff meetings on campus to discuss how we fight the attacks on our universities – and where next for our common struggle against the cost-of-living crisis?
• Fight for the funding our universities need to end disruption to students’ and workers’ lives. Fight for high-quality, free education – scrap fees, cancel student debt, and replace loans with living grants rising with inflation
• Build a new mass workers’ party to coordinate the struggles of students and workers in one fight against the bosses and their politicians
• Fight for socialist change – for democratic public ownership of the banks, monopolies and major industry to provide us with a future