HUNDREDS of students have joined their lecturers at Goldsmiths University fighting the cuts to education and the introduction of casual labour.
The students and lecturers held a fashion parade against what they called austerity fashion aimed at exposing the desperate state of education and the condition in which workers are expected to live.
Luke, a second year sociology student, said: ‘I am here to support my lecturers. The casualisation is messing up our future.
‘The pension cuts are putting our lecturers at risk. They will be expected to keep working well into their 70s because they won’t be able to live off the basic money this government wants to give them.
‘The message this is saying, is that working hard only pays the employers not the workers. That’s just wrong. Our lecturers have invested their time into our future so I feel we should support them as students.’
Lily Manix a fine art student dressed up as the university’s warden. She said: ‘There is money within the system it’s just not being spent to give us a better education. The top management are being rewarded for cutting workers’ pay and condition. Workers’ rights must be protected.’
Veronica Mac-Asore said: ‘I am voting for (WRP candidate for Camberwell and Peckham) Joshua (Ogunleye) and have been campaigning every day to get him elected. The Workers Revolutionary Party is the voice for the working class and this voice must be heard.
‘Workers must be united under a revolutionary leadership to get rid of capitalism.’
Meanwhile, staff at the Tower Hamlets branch of New City College were on their second day of strike action yesterday in their ongoing dispute over pay and conditions.
Members of UCU were on on picket lines from 8am at New City College’s main entrances on Poplar High Street and Arbour Square.
The dispute centres on the college’s failure to make a decent pay offer to staff who have seen the value of their pay decline by 25% in the past decade.
The pay gap between teachers in colleges and schools currently stands at over £7,000, despite the fact that around two-thirds of college heads say pay is a major obstacle in attracting staff.
UCU members have already taken six days of strike action this year as part of the dispute, with a three-day walkout in May followed by two days of strike action in June and a day of action during the student enrolment period in September. Members were balloted for further strike action in September and nine in ten of those who voted (90%) backed more walkouts.
