Foreign Correspondent in France, Katie Fox, explains the country’s latest strikes and outlines why people have decided to protest the government’s pension reform plans.
strikes
“It’s the last option we have” University staff strikes over pensions and pay begin in Exeter
University staff members took to the picket lines across Streatham and Penryn today to protest against freefalling working conditions and changes to their pension benefits. The University and Colleges Union (UCU), the largest Higher Education union in the world, have announced eight days of industrial action that will run from 25 November to 4 December. […]
78 per cent of Exeter Students Vote To Support UCU Cause
The Students’ Guild have voted to support the UCU cause as a result of an online poll they held. 78% of students have voted to support the cause, with 2,427 students voting. The Guild ran the poll from 11 Nov to 20 Nov, with the multiple choice question “What stance do you have regarding the […]
Exeter UCU launches anti-casualisation campaign
Exeter UCU are asking university senior management for a full of review of working practices. Exeter’s branch of the University and College Union launched a campaign on Friday (13 September) to combat insecure staff contracts, with national UCU General Secretary Jo Grady in attendance. Branch Vice-President and anti-casualisation lead Rhian Keyse outlined the union’s demands, […]
Life’s nice for the Vice
Life’s nice for the Vice EXETER’S Vice-Chancellor, Sir Steve Smith, is to be paid a massive £830,000 total as part of a special end of career remuneration package. This has been determined by a remuneration committee who have decided that this amount is justified. The package is around double his regular £424,000 salary, which is […]
Live Review: Occupy LIVE @ Northcote House
On the morning of February 22nd, the first of the fourteen non-consecutive days of striking that have dominated the last four weeks at Exeter, I spoke on the picket line with English lecturer Dr Joe Crawford. Our assembly, guitar-accompanied, had just finished singing the famous and verbose union song ‘Solidarity Forever’, which would become the […]
Europe Strikes Back – An Analysis of Europe’s Strike Culture
Just why is Europe always brought to a halt by weekly strikes? If you have spent time in mainland Europe in recent years, and particularly if you have been a Year Abroad student, you will have noticed that there is one event that causes the greatest inconvenience, often on a weekly basis. Strikes. In Britain, […]