Members of the Students’ Union at Cardiff University promise to show support despite massive disruption to their education.
University staff are planning to strike for eighteen days across February and March. The University and College Union (UCU) are calling for a more secure pension schemes and better working conditions. They say that universities are understaffed and overworked.
The strikes mean that many students will lose time with their lecturers, which could effect their education. But members of the Students’ Union (SU) have turned out in favour of their staff, voting in support of the strikes.
The SU’s Vice President for Education, Noah Russell, explains that “Our learning conditions and the lecturers teaching conditions are intertwined – you can’t really have one without the other”.
Tomorrow’s strikes are the latest in a series of industrial actions from the UCU, dating back to 2018. Staff are calling for stronger job security to provide better teaching, but with fees costing over £9,000 a year, some students believe they deserve compensation.
Isabelle Murray is a postgraduate student and has faced strike action since her first year of university in 2019. She believes that the students are being punished instead of the university management, saying “we’re the ones who are suffering and we are not getting the education that we’ve paid for. The support I want to give to my lectures is hindered because of how much it is impacting my education”.
Despite concerns, the SU want to reassure students that their needs have not been forgotten.
Their stance compliments the UCU, who say that their quality of education is damaged by workload and job insecurity.
Dr. Rob Lloyd lectures in English Literature. He believes that education standards are damaged by job insecurity and if demands were met, university would be a better experience for students as well as staff.
“I think that the anger that’s there should not really be directed us.” Dr Lloyd said, “the erosion of working standards is not something that we’ve elected to follow”.
The UCU strikes will take place over the next seven weeks. For a full list of strike dates click here.