Socialist students members attended a demonstration at De Montfort University in Leicester on 21 May, against the newly proposed cuts set to make approximately 20 technicians in the arts department redundant.

Approximately 100 people attended, most of whom were arts students whose education would be compromised by these cuts, as well as other university staff and members of the University and College Union (UCU).

A Socialist Party member addressed the rally, highlighting the increasing prevalence of cuts to education, the growing wealth gap as a result of intensified austerity measures, and the importance of building a workers’ party of working-class people, students and trade unions in order to fight austerity. The need to coordinate the fightback with staff and students, and across other campuses like the University of Leicester where staff have recently organised strike actions to fight job cuts, was put forward as a necessary step to escalate the struggle. The speech went down well, we sold eight copies of the Socialist immediately after it finished.

It was generally a lively protest with chants of “Save our Techs” drawing the attention of other students and staff around. One of the protesters had a placard with the inscription “£2.2m for the Innovation Centre but £0 for the innovators”, highlighting how the university management is spending money on a centre to promote business ventures while implementing job cuts. Last year, UCU members at DMU called out management for spending money to establish international campuses in Dubai and Kazakhstan while carrying out redundancies here. This brings to the fore the question of democratic control of universities.