Right To Work Campaign – “A model motion of support”

  
Model Motion Of Support & Invitation to Affiliate

 
1)      We note with concern the pre-election commitment of the leaders of all three major parties that public services will be cut in order to fund the public budget deficit.

2)      We deplore the attacks made by David Cameron, Gordon Brown and Lord Adonis together with the right wing media on those workers trying to defend their rights, conditions and pay such as the     BA cabin crew.

3)      We believe that working people should not have to pay for a deficit caused by this government nationalising the gambling debts run up by the bankers.

4)      We also note that cuts are already being implemented in higher education, council services, schools and the NHS even before the introduction of any overall austerity package.

5)      We deplore the attempts by unelected European Union and International Monetary Fund officials to foist a full blooded austerity package on the people of Greece where pensions and wages are being cut and services slashed, but welcome the resistance being shown by Greek trade unionists, pensioners and students.

6)      We welcome the decision of the Right to Work campaign to hold an emergency post-election conference on Saturday 22 May aimed at uniting workers, students, pensioners and all those rely on   public services in building and developing attacks on our services, jobs and living standards.

7)      This body agrees to support the conference and to send …. delegate/s.

8)      Further we agree to affiliate to the Right to Work campaign.

 To affiliate to the national Right to Work campaign (cost £30 – send cheques payable to Manchester TUC and marked “RtW Affiliation” to the above address.)
Delegate costs for 22 May, £8 per delegate, cheque payable to Manchester TUC to the above address, enclose name/s of delegates, body they represent and contact details.

Latest On The Iraq Occupation

Last month we discussed the real, human cost of the war in Iraq. We discovered amazingly that 1.2 – 1.6 million people have died due to the Iraq conflict, approximately 1:18 of the population. This month we are told 15% of the population, 1:6 has been displaced by the war.  

Seven years after the March 2003 US-led invasion, Iraq remains deeply divided. There are few prospects of durable solutions for the approximately 15 per cent of the population who are displaced inside and outside Iraq. It is thought that there are almost 2.8 million internally displaced people (IDPs), close to half of whom were displaced prior to 2003. Daily life for all Iraqis is precarious. Public health, electricity, water and sanitation services remain inadequate.

Here we forward this newsletter and would encourage everyone to subscribe. It comes once a month in email form- And is packed with interesting items about the war.

Iraq Occupation Focus
www.iraqoccupationfocus.org.uk
Newsletter No. 142
March 25th, 2010

Sign up to receive this free newsletter automatically – go to: http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/i raqfocus. Please also ask all those who share our opposition to the increasingly brutal US-UK occupation to do likewise.

Police: US troops kill Iraqi reporter and husband
AP reports (March 12th): U.S. troops opened fire on a car in western Baghdad, killing an Iraqi journalist and her husband, a police official said. Morgue officials confirmed the deaths and said the bodies of Aseel al-Obeidi and her husband were riddled with bullets.

UK government violated human rights of two imprisoned Iraqis, court rules
The Guardian reports (March 2nd): The UK government was condemned for violating the human rights of two Iraqis accused of murdering two captive British soldiers in 2003. Faisal al-Saadoon and Khalef Hussain Mufdhi, Sunni Muslims and former officials of Saddam Hussein’s Ba’ath party, have been detained for almost seven years. They are currently being held in the Rusafa prison near Baghdad. The European court of human rights in Strasbourg unanimously foundthe pair were “at real risk of being subjected to an unfair trial followed by execution by hanging” in Iraq.

Former murder squad chief to head inquiry into Iraqi killings allegation
The Guardian reports (March 9th): An investigation into claims that British troops killed and abused prisoners will be led by a former head of a Scotland Yard murder squad. The case will involve seeking evidence from witnesses to a fierce battle in southern Iraq six years ago. The huge task was announced at the launch of a public inquiry into allegations that British soldiers murdered 20 or more Iraqis after the “battle of Danny Boy”, named after a checkpoint in Maysan province, north of Basra, on 14 May 2004.

Interference Seen in Blackwater Inquiry
NY Times reports (March 2nd): An official at the United States Embassy in Iraq has told federal prosecutors that he believes that State Department officials sought to block any serious investigation of the 2007 shooting episode in which Blackwater Worldwide security guards were accused of murdering 17 Iraqi civilians, according to court testimony. David Farrington, a State Department security agent in the American Embassy at the time of the shooting in Baghdad’s Nisour Square, told prosecutors that some of his colleagues were handling evidence in a way they hoped would help the Blackwater guards avoid punishment for a crime that drew headlines and raised tensions between American and Iraqi officials.

Urgent Appeal for releasing the prisoners detained in Iraq prisons
Brussells Tribunal reports: (March 11th): World Association of Arab Translators and Linguists are appealing to the Secretary General of the United Nations for the release of Iraqi prisoners: “The USA occupying forces in Iraq have locked up more than 162,000 Iraqi citizens in more than 50 prisons and detention camps including 28 camps run by US occupying forces, in addition to many undisclosed investigation and incarceration centres over Iraq.

The number of detainees registered in International Red Cross records is around 71,000, the other detainees are not recorded with the IRC because they are arrested at US detaining centres where visits by the Red-Cross representatives are denied by the occupying forces and thousands of war prisoners and old age detainees have been imprisoned and detained for more than six years suffering from unbearable and painful living and health conditions..

Among the detainees there are 520 women detained by the US forces as hostages in place of their husbands or sons who have escaped detention by the US occupying forces. In prisons run by the US occupying forces there are also more than 900 children of less than fifteen years of age and 470 of them are less than twelve years of age. In the government prisons there are 1400 children less than fifteen years dumped into crowded and filthy cells. There are also 12,000 persons detained by mistake or under suspicion who are still detained for many years.”

Fallujah doctors report rise in birth defects
BBC reports (March 4th): Doctors in the Iraqi city of Fallujah are reporting a high level of birth defects, with some blaming weapons used by the US after the Iraq invasion. The city witnessed fierce fighting in 2004 as US forces carried out a major offensive against insurgents.Now, the level of heart defects among newborn babies is said to be 13 times higher than in Europe. British-based Iraqi researcher Malik Hamdan told the BBC’s World Today programme that doctors in Fallujah were witnessing a “massive unprecedented number” of heart defects, and an increase in the number of nervous system defects. She said that one doctor in the city had compared data about birth defects from before 2003 – when she saw about one case every two months – with the situation now, when, she saw cases every day.

2.8 million Iraqis remain internally displaced
Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre reports (March 4th): Seven years after the March 2003 US-led invasion, Iraq remains deeply divided. There are few prospects of durable solutions for the approximately 15 per cent of the population who are displaced inside and outside Iraq. It is thought that there are almost 2.8 million internally displaced people (IDPs), close to half of whom were displaced prior to 2003. Though Iraq is no longer in the grip of a humanitarian crisis, daily life for all Iraqis is precarious. Public health, electricity, water and sanitation services remain inadequate.

Iraq’s trade ministry hit by £2.6 billion fraud
The Times reports (March 7th): Rampant government corruption emerged as one of the biggest issues in the election campaign, with the exposure of a huge fraud at the trade ministry. Sabah al-Saadi, head of the Iraqi parliament’s anti-corruption committee, said documents showed that $4 billion (£2.6 billion) had gone missing from the ministry, but that the total could be as high as $8 billion in the past four years. Saadi said he was pursuing 20,000 legal cases for official corruption, most of which had been delayed until a new government was installed.

Voter fraud allegations
Juan Cole reports (March 5th): Aljazeera Arabic reports that parties are attempting to buy votes among the often penniless refugees. Al-Hayat [Life] reports in Arabic that over a million Iraqis took part in early voting. An official in the Independent High Electoral Commission, Hamdiya al-Husaini, confirmed to al-Hayat that soldiers had been pressured to vote for a certain party, which she would not name, and even that some soldiers arrived at the voting station only to find that someone else had already voted on their behalf. She promised an investigation by the High Electoral Commission. The voting process was chaotic, and many soldiers’s names could not be found at their voting stations on the registration rolls. Some soldiers even staged demonstrations over being disenfranchised in this way, in response to which the High Electoral Commission promised them redress. Nevertheless, thousands are estimated to have been unable to vote.

Iraq opposition alleges ‘flagrant’ election fraud
AFP reports (March 12th): A senior member of Iraq’s main secular opposition bloc protested of blatant fraud in favour of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki during Iraq’s general election. “There has been clear and flagrant fraud,” said Intisar Allawi, a senior candidate in ex-prime minister Iyad Allawi’s Iraqiya bloc, the main rival to Maliki’s State of Law Alliance. “There were persons who manipulated or changed the figures to increase the vote in favour of the State of Law Alliance.” She said that Iraqiya’s own election observers for last Sunday’s poll had found ballot papers in garbage dumps in the northern disputed province of Kirkuk.

Ayad Allawi accuses Nouri al-Maliki’s group of fraud in bid to retain power
The Time adds (March 12th): Ayad Allawi told Western officials that aides to Nouri al-Maliki, the Prime Minister, had hidden ballot papers and falsified computer records in an effort to retain power. “They are stealing the votes of the Iraqi people,” his spokesman told a press conference called to set out the main claims. Several violations alleged by Mr Allawi have been confirmed by diplomats and election observers. Mr Allawi also claimed that 250,000 soldiers were denied the chance to vote, and that an election monitor had found ballot papers with votes for Mr Allawi dumped in the garden of a polling station in the northern city of Kirkuk.

Number of Iraqis killed jumps as election nears
AP report (March 2nd): The number of Iraqis killed in war-related violence increased by 44 percent between January and February, according to a count by The Associated Press, with civilians accounting for almost all of the casualties.

Iraqi children’s rights violated
The Brussells Tribunal reports (February 2010): Under the American occupation, lack of security, sectarian violence, deterioration of health care systems, poverty, massive imprisonments, clean water shortages, limited or no electrical power, environmental pollution and lack of sanitation all contributed to grave violations to children’s rights and a drastic increase in the child mortality rate. It has been reported that one out of eight children in Iraq die before their fifth birthday.

Iraq’s Christians demand justice
Al Jazeera reports (February 28th): Iraqis in Baghdad and Mosul have protested a recent wave of attacks on their minority religious communities, following the murder of eight Christians in less than two weeks. Holding olive branches and the national flag, demonstrators vented their anger over the poor security afforded them in the wake of a series of killings. Shouting slogans such as “stop the killing of Christians”, hundreds of demonstrators called on authorities to guarantee their protection as they marched round al-Ferdus Square in central Baghdad.

EI protests against the continued harassment of union leaders
Education International reports (February 26th): Education International is very concerned about the continuous governmental interference the Iraqi Teachers’ Union (ITU) is experiencing. The ITU, an organisation currently applying for EI membership, continues to face extreme attacks from the Iraqi government which wants to control the union. Iraqi teacher unionist al-Battat was arrested and then released on 22 February after an eight-day detention period. He was involved in strike actions, and his home came under fire after he refused to hand over the union memberships lists.

Women Miss Saddam
Abdu Rahman and Dahr Jamail report for IPS (March 12th): Under Saddam Hussein, women in government got a year’s maternity leave; that is now cut to six months. Under the Personal Status Law in force since Jul. 14, 1958, when Iraqis overthrew the British-installed monarchy, Iraqi women had most of the rights that Western women do. Now they have Article 2 of the Constitution: “Islam is the official religion of the state and is a basic source of legislation.” Sub-head A says “No law can be passed that contradicts the undisputed rules of Islam.” Under this Article the interpretation of women’s rights is left to religious leaders – and many of them are under Iranian influence.”The U.S. occupation has decided to let go of women’s rights,” Yanar Mohammed who campaigns for women’s rights in Iraq says.

New Fraud Cases Point to Lapses in Iraq Projects
NY Times reports (March 13th): Investigators looking into corruption involving reconstruction in Iraq say they have opened more than 50 new cases in six months by scrutinizing large cash transactions — involving banks, land deals, loan payments, casinos and even plastic surgery — made by some of the Americans involved in the nearly $150 billion program. Some of the cases involve people who are suspected of having mailed tens of thousands of dollars to themselves from Iraq, or of having stuffed the money into duffel bags and suitcases when leaving the country, the federal investigators said. In other cases, millions of dollars were moved through wire transfers. Suspects then used cash to buy BMWs, Humvees and expensive jewellery, or to pay off enormous casino debts.

Cuts To Education Exposed – Guildford Against Fees And Cuts

25th March 2010

CUTS TO EDUCATION EXPOSED

 On Thursday the government announced how cuts to higher education will be distributed between the universities. The long-awaited report confirmed the fears of many that education would be made to pay the price of the £1 trillion given to the rich bankers. The report from the Higher Education Funding Council of England shows that four out of every five universities in England will face real-terms cuts. A total of £573 million in cash cuts (7.23%), have been announced for next year alone. This is nothing short of a catastrophe for education in England.

In order to make the cuts seem less bitter, slight increases have been made to teaching and research funding but this is still a real terms fall. The cuts by and large fall in the ‘capital funding’ bracket – mostly the money that universities are allowed to claim for new buildings. This may not seem like it will immediately effect students, but many university buildings are unfit for purpose and will be replaced by universities using funding from other areas – effectively sacking teachers and replacing them with bricks. This is currently happening at King’s College, where staff are being sacked at the same time as management are forking out £20 million for the grandiose Somerset House on the bank of the river Thames.

Just for profit, not for students
Research funding will be narrowed into a smaller number of ‘elite’ institutions, creating a two-tier system.
The general trend is to give more money to the universities that already have the most, by taking it away from the others. Oxford University’s research funding has increased by £7.1million up to £126million, and a third of the total research fund is distributed to just five key universities – Oxford, Cambridge, UCL, Imperial and Manchester. Less fortunate universities are set to become little more than teaching factories providing degrees aimed at workplace skills with much less funding to develop research practices. But although these richer universities are more protected from the cuts, some are still making academic staff redundant as part of a drive towards “restructuring” – providing only courses that are profitable in the world of business, and deprioritising education that is for the pursuit of knowledge.

Education for the rich
Many university managers want to shift the central funding crisis onto students – by campaigning for higher tuition fees. Shortly after the general election, the review into ‘Higher Education Funding and Student Finance’, headed by ex-BP chief executive Lord Browne, is expected to increase the tuition fee cap from £3,225 per year to £5,000 or even higher.

Some universities such as Oxford are pushing for the cap to be abolished altogether, allowing them to charge whatever they like. Fees have already been shown to put working class students off entering university, and the higher fees proposed are likely to mean that more prestigious universities such as those in the Russell group will become almost exclusively playgrounds of the rich. The combined effect will be that working class students will pay to be trained in careers, while rich students will receive a traditional ‘liberal’ arts and sciences education leading to cultural elitism. This would be a serious regression back in the direction of a Victorian style education.

Stealing our future
But with money, or without it, the HEFCE is threatening to keep higher education well out of reach of thousands of students in Further Education colleges who want to carry on their studies.
Entry quotas have been given to universities, and they will be required to keep within the limits or face financial penalties. At a time when unemployment is so high, many young people are desperate to start earning money, or continue education and are now being denied the opportunity for either, with an estimated seven applicants for every university place this year, leaving youth on the scrap-heap.

Courses cut – exec pay rockets
Many universities have already begun cutting staff and even whole departments. Sussex has lost linguistics, Leeds is losing classics, UCL is cutting language courses and Westminster is slashing IT. The cuts are not just a response to anticipated central government funding cuts, but university managers are cynically using them as an excuse to remove unprofitable courses and academics who perform useful research, but without immediate financial value to businesses.

This is part of the trend towards neo-liberalism in universities where academics have to justify their jobs based on economic value, ignoring the far more important value non-profitable research can have for society. The move towards business-orientated universities has expressed itself in other ways – vice-chancellors have seen their pay increase to a level similar of Britain’s largest national corporations, many earning in excess of £300,000 per annum. At the same time their numbers have increased by a third, meaning a disproportionate amount of money is spent on management while academic jobs are being cut. This is

Britain’s role in the shady European ‘Bologna Process’ plan, which is attacking education across Europe, and has provoked mass uprisings of students from Italy, to Greece, to France, Austria, Germany, Switzerland and many more. The process coordinates efforts by the leaders of 42 countries to standardise universities, allowing them to compete with one another – creating a market in education, where institutions that best serve the needs of business will thrive, whereas the others will be cut back. The global financial crisis seems to mean that the bosses are accelerating the process.

But the current attacks on education are no foregone conclusion, and the movement for education is starting to win victories. Occupations, demonstrations and strikes at Sussex, Leeds and London Met have already won some impressive victories along the way to defeating the cuts, and the similar struggles of our brothers and sisters in Europe show a potential to organise internationally – if we could do that imagine how powerful the student movement would be. The lesson – we need to organise and fight for learning, not profit

Copied from: http://www.workerspower.com

Sussex University Students Union – Letter To Students

The Voice of Anti-Capitalism has obtained a letter from Sussex University Student Union to the students of Sussex. It was sent to students a couple of days before the UCU went on strike on Thursday. The letter urges students to support the UCU strike and we think it is a principled position for all student unions to take.  Sussex has consistently led the student response to the education cuts. Sussex University Student Union – Letter To Students

Links:
Sussex University Occupation (March 12th – 18th:  https://suacs.wordpress.com/2010/03/15/sussex-university-student-occupation-2010-the-full-story/
Round-up of This Student protests against Fees & Cuts. https://suacs.wordpress.com/2010/03/20/322/
Join the F/book page: Guildford Against Fees And Cuts

Sussex University Frontline And Other Stories – A Summary

Sussex University Frontline & Other Stories

Rounding up a few of this weeks “Campaign Against Fees & Cuts” action.Short Summary or go to the full version: https://suacs.wordpress.com/2010/03/20/322/
Download this summary as a Word file Sussex University Frontline Summary 

The Sussex Occupation
The Sussex occupation was in support of the Sussex Six,- but also demanded the university reverse its plans to make 115 teaching staff redundant and make 8million pounds of cuts over the next two years. On Friday, an open letter signed by students and SU officers urged University employees earning over 70,000 per annum to take a “voluntary 10% pay cut, in order to help protect the welfare of all staff and students. http://www.youtube.com/user/sussexnot4sale

At the EGM 18^th March, over 1000 students voted overwhelmingly “No Confidence” in the Vice Chancellor and the Senior Management. Many students joined the picket lines at the front of the University as lecturers and workers closed down the campus with strike action. As a result, management agreed to extend the consultation period regarding the cuts until June 7th. Letter sent by Sussex University Student Union to every student, urging support for the UCU strike.  https://suacs.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/sussex-student-union-letter.doc

Newcastle
Newcastle University’s Free Education Network held a rally against cuts 18^th March, as a shot across management’s bows. The University is rumoured to be planning in secret cuts across all its departments.

Aberdeen
On Wednesday March 17th students at the University of Aberdeen held a demonstration in defence of education on campus. It followed the collection of over 1500 signatures on a petition demanding the university management gives assurances that budgets at the University will not be cut. The students complained that theses cuts come as the Principle, Duncan Rice is reciceving a 17% salary increase.  On the 18^th, The students returned to the University’s management offices for a twenty four hour occupation.

Westminster
Last month, a mass meeting of students, lecturers and staff at Westminster University voted ‘no confidence’ in their Vice-Chancellor. This was their response to 10% budget cuts across the University with 280 job losses. On March 1st, 250 students and staff, against the cuts, stormed the governors’ meeting and took over the Vice Chancellor’s office. They occupied the University’s main management and administration rooms for three days. The Student Union, tried to play the impartial mediator between the University and the “No Cuts At Westminster” campaigners. We at SUACS find the Student Union’s attitude cowardly and distasteful in the face of such devestating cuts.

The students sent a letter to the Vice Chancellor, Geoffrey Petts demanding no compulsory redundancies; -all documents pertaining to the university’s finances be made freely available to the unions (UCU, Unison, Student Union) -and a guarantee that no staff or students involved in the demonstrations would face repercussions.

Leeds University
On 1st March, the anti-cuts campaign joined UCU members for a demonstration against cuts. The demonstration highlighted that the University was set to cut 35 million pounds off the budget- roughly 10% per school. The cuts will mean up to 700 job losses. A formal challenge accuses the senior management of bypassing The Senate, breaking the University’s charter and key statutes. There was a strike planned for the 18^th March but it was called off after the UCU (lecturers union) had their demands met by university management.

 University Of East Anglia
At the University of East Anglia a well-attended protest on March 3rd was accompanied by a heavy police presence disgracefully called in by the university management. The UCU are currently voting in a strike ballot.

The government’s HEFCE announced its proposed funding cuts today. The cuts are small in comparison to the cuts made by many universities. University management teams are using this opportunity to make huge cuts of their own, in-order to restructure their universities and orientate them towards a financial competitiveness within a ‘free-market’ of education.

Links:
National Campaign Against Fees And Cuts
http://conventionagainstfeesandcuts.wordpress.com/

The Sussex University Front Line And Other Stories – Guildford Against Fees And Cuts

 The Sussex University Front Line And Other Stories

Rounding up a few of this weeks
“Campaign Against Fees & Cuts” action.

Sussex Occupation	Sussex University Update (18th March)
Newcastle University	Aberdeen
Westminster	Westminster Update
Leeds University	Leeds Update
University Of East Anglia	Kings
Kings College London Update	What We Say
Links & acknowledgements	What We Say Update

The Sussex Occupation
On March 3rd fictions about hostage-taking led to an unprecedented police deployment at Sussex University. This resulted in two arrests and the imposition of a high court injunction criminalising “occupational protest.” Shortly afterwards six students were suspended on political grounds.  

The occupation has organised a programme of meetings, discussion, films and other events, designed to strengthen opposition to the cuts. The Student Union has called an EGM to discuss and vote on the motion: “This union has no confidence in the Vice-Chancellor.” Further details below.

 Since taking office, the Vice Chancellor, Michael Farthing has disbanded several key departments, including the renowned Linguistics Department — a move condemned by Noam Chomsky as “a serious blow to the intellectual life of the university.”

Sussex University Students Union Motion of No Confidence in the Vice Chancellors Executive Group (VCEG)This Union notes: The proposals by management to make 115 redundancies, close Unisex, privatize the crèche, dismantle the student advice services and cut the student union block grant. University management’s unwillingness to consider the alternative proposals presented by the lecturers union (UCU) as well as various Schools.The Equality Impact Assessments required by law were insufficient and contained no data The creation of a fictitious hostage situation during the Sussex House occupation (03.03.10) in order to justify the use of riot police on   suspension of 6 students on political grounds following the protest. With the largest turnout in a UCU ballot, the campus lecturers’ union voted overwhelmingly in favour of strike action (76% in favour with an 80% turnout)This Union believes: If allowed to go through, the proposals will have hugely detrimental effects on education and student experience at Sussex The injunction issued against all staff and students for the purposes of preventing peaceful protest is a human rights violation.The six suspended students have been scapegoated for the actions of the wider student community, and more specifically, the Stop the Cuts campaign. Cuts to USSU’s block grant will not allow the union to provide adequate services and representation for the student body The VCEG have been the architects and administrators of the above actions, and should resign with immediate effect.This Union resolves: That it has no confidence in the Vice Chancellor’s Executive Group at Sussex UniversityProposer – Richa Kaul Padte Seconder – Claire Laker-Mansfield

The UCU (lecturers’ union) are set to strike on Thursday 18^th, after a 76% majority voted in favour of industrial action. The UCU Sussex branch president, Paul Cecil, said: “Industrial action is an absolute last resort, but the university’s unwillingness to enter into meaningful negotiations has forced our hand. The bottom line is that serious job losses will impact massively on the quality of education and services here at Sussex”.

 USSU President Tom Wills said: “We are right behind Sussex staff. We understand that strike action may be the key to winning this battle and we will do everything we can to support it. We will hold university management responsible for disruption to our education resulting from the strike – but more over we will hold management responsible for the devastation that will be wrought on our education if they succeed in pushing through their cuts proposals.”

 On Friday, an open letter signed by students and SU officers urged University employees earning over 70,000 per annum to take a “voluntary 10% pay cut, in order to help protect the welfare of all staff and students at the University”. http://www.youtube.com/user/sussexnot4sale
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hl9k0pfHJ0I Who occupied Sussex House?
 An Update:-  At the EGM 18^th March, over 1000 students voted overwhelmingly “No Confidence” in the Vice Chancellor and the Senior Management. A great blow to the management’s legitimacy.

For the last four nights students, staff and supporters have been occupying the ARTS A2 Lecture theatre in defiance of a High Court Injunction. Around five hundred students are occupying the theater in support of the Sussex Six, still not fully reinstated, and in support of workers facing compulsory redundancy. The protest demands the University reverses its plans to make redundant 115 teaching staff and make 8million pounds of cuts over the next two years.

The University Senate voted to re-instate the Sussex 6, and to organise an independent investigation into the events surrounding the calling of the police on the 3rd of March. The only members of the Senate who voted against these motions were the unelected senior management.

With regard to the proposed cuts, management agreed to extend the consultation period until June 7th. The Senators mentioned amongst their concerns the significant lobbying from MPs and councillors and the strength of the students’ response on campus.  If the VP doesn’t comply with the senate’s decission, he will be breaking the law.

The campaign in support of the Sussex Six has been entirely successful. Surrey United Anti-Capitalists salute the  Sussex students. Today 18^th, 50 people joined the picket lines at the front of the University as lecturers and campus workers in the UCU closed down the campus with strike action against compulsory redundancies.

Union President Tom Wills captured the mood when he told BBC Breakfast News, “This isn’t just about Higher Education, it’s about the fact they have given billions to the bankers, and now they are asking working people and students to pay with a massive programme of public sector cuts.”
Letter from USSU to all students urging support for the UCU strike. https://suacs.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/sussex-student-union-letter.doc

Newcastle
Newcastle University’s Free Education Network will be holding a rally against cuts 18^th March, as a shot across management’s bows. The University is rumoured to be planning in secret a raft of cuts across its departments. The rally will be joined trade unionists and student activists.

Aberdeen
On Wednesday March 17th students at the University of Aberdeen held a demonstration in defence of education on campus. It followed the collection of over 1500 signatures on a petition demanding that the University management give assurances that departmental budgets at the University will not be cut. The students complained that theses cuts come as the Principle, Duncan Rice is receiving a 17% salary increase.  
Update: March 18^th, The students returned today and occupied the University’s management offices for a twenty-four hour occupation. They ended their successful occupation when the Vice Chancellor agreed to a meeting with the campaign regarding the cuts.

Westminster
Last month, a mass meeting of students, lecturers and staff at Westminster University voted ‘no confidence’ in their Vice-Chancellor. This was their response to 10% budget cuts across the University with 190 academic and 90 administrative job losses. It follows the recent closure of the ceramics department and nursery. Management salaries have gone up an average of 25% over the last year.

On March 1st, 250 students and staff, against the cuts, stormed the governors’ meeting and took over the Vice Chancellor’s office. They occupied the University’s main management and administration rooms for three days. The students challenged the Vice-Chancellor Geoff Petts and the board of governors to explain why the management is pushing through cuts- while the university was carrying out a $61 million refurbishment of buildings and had made a several million pound surplus the previous year. Although his answers were typical management double-speak, he had no answer.

The protesters had the full support and backing of the UCU, but Westminster Students Union distanced itself from the occupation. It tried to play the impartial mediator between the University and the “No Cuts At Westminster” campaigners. The SU said on its web site: “We fully support the aims of the campaign but do not believe the occupation is the right course of action. The Students’ Union is doing its utmost to maintain constructive conversations with the protestors and the University”. We at SUACS find the Student Union’s attitude cowardly and distasteful in the face of such devastating cuts.

The students sent a letter to the Vice Chancellor, Geoffrey Petts demanding no compulsory redundancies; -all documents pertaining to the university’s finances be made freely available to the unions (UCU, Unison, Student Union) -and a guarantee that no staff or students involved in the demonstrations would face repercussions. The letter warned the Vice Chancellor that actions would continue now and in the future unless he concedes to the demands. 17th March a rally was held at the Marylebone Campus with representatives from the UCU.
Update: March 18^th. Around two hundred students and staff held a rally outside the Cavendish campus.
Westminster is currently in the front line in terms of cuts. Around 300 jobs will go by the end of July. The UCU and Unison are balloting and will hopefully be taking strike action over April and May, including over the exam period.

Leeds University
On 1st March, the anti-cuts campaign joined UCU members for a demonstration against cuts. The demonstration highlighted that the University was set to cut 35 million pounds off the budget- roughly 10% per school. This is despite making a profit of £11 million last year, having £80 million in reserves and engaging in massive building works across campus. The UCU has passed a motion of no confidence in the Vice-Chancellor, and is already in dispute with the university. The cuts will mean up to 700 job losses.

The students and staff demanded to know why there was is a £20 million pounds error in financial forecasting within the university’s budget, as reported in the press. The demonstrators also criticised the NUS for not organising a campaign. Leeds UCU is due to hold a strike on Thursday 18th and is due to hold an EGM on the 16th, to consider further strike action on 20th and 21st April. 

The UCU has forced Lord Mandelson, in his capacity as Lord President of the Council, to put the
University’s cost cutting plans on hold. A formal challenge accuses the university of bypassing the body responsible for its academic mission, the senate, breaking the University’s charter and key statutes. http://www.leeds.ac.uk/aut/200910/alternative%20vision.pdf

The ‘Education First’ campaign, set up earlier this month, urged Leeds students to send an automated email to their departmental staff in a bid to avert a possible campus-wide strike. The Student Union sent automated emails to students for them to fire off to their tutors asking them not to strike. The results of a UCU ballot over industrial action are about to be released. The Leeds UCU claimed it has won the strike because all its demands have been met. However their demands were only that the cuts be brought in slower. The 600 redundancies shall be fulfilled by not filling vacancies. And voluntary redundancy is still a possibility. Up to 70 immediate compulsory redundancies have been agreed, postponed till 2011.  These are massive cuts the union leadership is conceding. 
Update:  Today’s planned strike was called off after the UCU (lecturers union) had their demands met by university management. While the concessions relate to the process of consultation and review, rather than guarantees to protect jobs and education, it remains a significant victory in the struggle against the bosses’ devastating £35m cuts.
Leeds Anti Cuts Campaign pdf

University Of East Anglia
At the University of East Anglia a well-attended protest on March 3rd was accompanied by a heavy police presence disgracefully called in by the university management. The Vice Chancellor was alarmed by the occupation that had started two days ago in Westminster- and was worried because the protest coincided with a University open-day.Two days before the protest the Senior Management team sent the anti-cuts campaign a letter offering direct talks and consultation on the implementation of the cuts, which the letter claimed was being imposed on the University from without.  

Kings
There was a well attended teach-in held at Kings College London, last week, organized by the No Cuts at Kings campaign and the UCU. (lecturers’ union). It was noted that restricting all managerial salaries at Kings to £100,000, about four times the national average wage, would save £9 million, while the proposed cuts  would  see the back of 10% of staff and the closure of at least one department. This is a familiar story for many universities. The humanities Department is also set to lose another 22 teaching staff. The UCU are currently voting in a strike ballot.
Update: 19^th March. The first demonstration was a great start to the No Cuts campaign. Over 100 students gathered outside the Strand building to show their opposition to the cuts plan being imposed by King’s College Principal Rick Trainor. Over the summer 30 people were made redundant and the College Council took the decision to close the Engineering Department. The management intends to make another 10 percent of cuts across all departments at KCL and has already put in place a voluntary redundancy scheme to encourage staff to leave. Demonstration: Saturday March 20^th. 12 noon outside Strand. http://nocutsatkings.blogspot.com/

What We Say
Peter Mandelson has announced a reduction of £449million in overall higher education spending this year. He claims the treasury needs to claw money back from public services after the bank bailout and the recession. – But hang on. Apparently the banks were given a trillion pounds of our money. £449million is only .05% of what the banks received in state subsidy. Is the government really prepared to trash a generation in-order to raise a tiny proportion of National Debt. The debt is the result of thirty years false accounting and fictitious capital. That’s fraud to you and me. There’s people driving down my High Street with smug grins on their faces, clothed and jeweled in our taxes, pensions and education. We really have got to end this system – And it’s so easily done.

The politicians and University managers would argue that education is about improving job prospects for graduates – and, like any professional service, that implies that the customer must pay accordingly. They argue Universities operate (or should operate) as free-market entities, on a global stage. Unless they effectively compete, Universities in other countries will draw all the talent away.

Yet these claims – which dominate and define the terms of debate are highly questionable. The claim regarding the competition of Universities for talent needs to be subject to critique. Since global league tables are based on assumptions that presuppose this free market model it is not surprising that they will by and large reflect that in their rankings – the more ‘competitive’ the University the higher it will rank. Furthermore, beyond the scientific disciplines, for instance in the humanities, the journal citation indexes are hegemonised by dull, US based publications which generally spew out predictable, boring research that simply aims to justify the status quo. Academic talent, as measured by publication in these journals, is a race to the mediocre middle – not based on based on novel thinking, or the ability to inspire students.

Studying for long periods of time is, perhaps, economically unproductive use of time – and it is exactly on that basis that we must claim it as a common good. Education is a good in itself; just as are the arts; just are most of the things we really value in life. The attempt by government to justify these things in the jargon of productivity, competition, social cohesion, or whatever, are fallacious and demoralising to the extreme once they become internalized in University culture.

These are the arguments that need to be made. But arguments are not enough. Politicians and University administrators no longer want to have an argument. For politicians liberalising tuition fees is simply what has to be done; the only problem is sneaking it past the electorate, or tarting it up with enough social democratic window dressing to make it palatable.

More than 80 university heads now ‘earn’ more than £200,000. Some have seen their salary double or even triple in ten years. In contrast, HE lecturers have received an average increase of 45.7 percent over the same period. So inflated are the highest salaries that a rationalisation of top incomes would free up large amounts of money.

This is why the Surrey United Anti-Capitalists (SUAC) unequivocally supports student occupations. We support the upcoming industrial action of the UCU and demand the right to free education. We hope the student and worker protests heralds the start of a real fight here in the UK, when the next government (Tory or Labour) will almost certainly push for caps to be lifted on tuition fees.

Activists around the country should use the inspiration they have ignited across the student movement and amongst campus workers to build a mass movement. After all, the money is there – it’s just been given to the bankers. Let’s demand it back.

Update: 18^th March. The government’s HEFCE announced its proposed funding cuts today. The announcements do not provide a breakdown of what cuts will be implemented in each department, but do give an indication of the level of cuts faced by the universities. For example: Leeds funding is to be reduced by 0.5%; Westminster by 0.7%; And the UEA by 0.1%. Oxford’s has been increased by 1%; Essex has gone up 1.1%; and Leeds Met by 0.9%. These increases still represent funding cuts in real terms.

What these announcements teach us- is that University managements, for example in Sussex, Leeds and Westminster are using government cut backs of 1% as a smoke screen for closing departments and forcing through changes of 10% cuts and more. University management teams are using this opportunity to make huge cuts of their own, in-order to restructure their Universities and orientate them towards a financial competitiveness within a ‘free-market’ of education. The neoliberal transformation of universities is an internalisation of the logic of competition, so that universities, departments and individual academics are all pushed to treat each other as rivals in the struggle for resources.

 What will follow is a “liberalisation” of the fees structure – And whilst the top Universities will concentrate on attracting rich students from abroad. The majority of people in the UK will be excluded from an education. –Or at best, will take-on huge debts in exchange for a second rate, de-valued, second-class university education.    

When they say cut back – We say “String ‘Em Up”
The Universities will be receiving their funding letters from the treasury on 18^th March. This letter is a public letter. Why not ask your VP for a copy.

Download Word File Here: Sussex University Front Line – Word File

Acknowledgements To:
Revolution Socialist Youth http://www.worldrevolution.org.uk/
“The Commune” http://thecommune.wordpress.com/

Links:
Guildford Against Fees And Cuts
http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/pages/Guildford-Against-Fees-Cuts/167151436659040

Campaign Against Fees And Cuts
http://conventionagainstfeesandcuts.wordpress.com/

Education Campaign – After The Occupation – What To Do Next

CUTS CAMPAIGNS – FURTHER ACTION

March 13th
In the week 13th-20th March – take action to support the strike at Leeds and Sussex and demand the unconditional Reinstatement of the Sussex 6!
The London and Southern Regional National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts have issued a call for further action for the 17th and 18th,
Things you can do –
* Hand out leaflets on your campus telling students about the strikes and the Sussex 6
* Take a collection for the strike funds at Sussex and Leeds
* Take photographs of students on your campus holding signs saying “I occupied Sussex House”
* Organise rallies, marches, and other forms of protest in support of staff and against fees and cuts
* Get a motion passed in your union supporting the strikes and the national campaign
* Come to the UCU demonstration against cuts in London on the 20th of March
* Attend the Education Activists’ meeting, Kings College London. 16^th March. 6.30pm https://suacs.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/16th-march-regional-meeting-flyer

Download the full story of the current Sussex University occupation.
Word File – Text Only: https://suacs.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/cuts-text-pics.doc
Word File – Text & Pics: https://suacs.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/cuts-text-only.doc

LINKS: 
Visit our blog https://suacs.wordpress.com/ for the full story to date and further updates.
Or join Guildford Against Fees And Cuts F/b page.

Join the  F/b group: Sussex Stop The Cuts
Or Visit http://www.defendsussex.wordpress.com

Sussex University Student Occupation 2010 -The Full Story

                       SUSSEX UNIVERSITY STUDENT OCCUPATION

 SUSSEX STOP THE CUTS
The Stop the Cuts campaign formed in response to plans by the University administration to cut back on spending by millions in the next few years. The University is planning to cut £3 million this academic year, and £5 million next year.

Sussex Stop the Cuts is a group for all staff and students concerned about the negative effects these cuts will have on the quality of education, research and livelihoods at Sussex. Everyone who studies or works at Sussex needs to challenge the decisions being made on their behalf. And ask whether the millions of pounds spent on new buildings and managerial salaries would have been better spent on courses, jobs and pensions.

 The Stop the Cuts campaign demands the university administration makes no compulsory redundancies and resists student fees and cuts in higher education spending. It argues for the reining in of executive pay, the postponement of new building projects, and the protection of academic freedom. Sussex Stop the Cuts also calls for a concerted student effort to prevent the threatened 5% cut to USSU’s block grant from the University. Instead, the campaign calls for the University to provide USSU with the financial assistance it needs to provide students with fundamental support services through the recession. Now is the time when students need their Union the most!

 SUSSEX HOUSE
Last week students occupied Sussex House (the management buildings of Sussex University) in solidarity with lecturers who had voted in favour of strike action. Roger Morgan (Head of Security) and John Duffy (Registrar and Secretary) stopped some staff from leaving, herded them in to an office and joining them, locked the door. They represented this to the police as a hostage situation. The result was 16 vans of riot police were called onto campus. Students were beaten back with fists, knees, batons and police dogs. Senior managers including Robert Allison (Pro-Vice Chancellor) and Michael Farthing, (Vice Chancellor), were eye witneses to students being attacked by the riot police.

Senior managers including John Duffy (Registrar and Secretary) and Roger Morgan (Head of Security) repeated their hostage story to the High Court in order to get an injunction against the entire student body. The injunction made occupational protests on campus illegal. Michael Farthing then suspended 6 students indefinitely. They have not been given a reason  as to why they have been suspended, nor have they been told when they will be reinstated. This is a politically motivated attack on 6 students by the management. An attempt to intimidate the student body in the face of unprecidented cuts to their education. A warning to students not to support the UCU lecturers’ strike.

BUT WE SAY
– STUDENTS, LECTURERS AND STAFF UNITE!
– UNCONDITIONAL IMMEDIATE REINSTATE OF THE SUSSEX 6!
– NO POLICE VIOLENCE ON CAMPUS!
– NO CONFIDENCE IN VCEG! (Vice Chancellor’s Executive Group)
– THE REMOVAL OF ROGER MORGAN, HEAD OF SECURITY
– THE RIGHT TO PROTEST!

 THURSDAY – 11^th
Around two in the afternoon there was a demonstration around an entrance to the University.  I arrived as the last speaker, Simon Hardy from the Fight Cuts at Westminster Campaign addressed the cowed. Simon Hardy is a member of Workers Power and led the recent occupation of Westminster University.

The rally concluded with a unanimous vote to re-oocupy Sussex House. Around eight hundred students and staff marched around the campus and then to Sussex House. Once inside students seperated and  made their way around the building. From the roof of the building several stories high, students could still be seen entering the building and protesting outside. After some time it was decided to vacate the building. The demonstration continued around the campus until it reached a lecture theater, Arts A2. This is now the venue for the occupation.  Once the building was secured, an open meeting was convened. A letter was drafted to the Vice Chancellor, Michael Farthing listing a series of demands and a petition for him to collect in person.

The main demand was the unconditional reinstatement of the six students. There was some discussion wether the letter should include wider demands such as no compulsory redundancies, however a more focussed campaign was decided upon. An assurance that no disciplinary action should be taken against any one involved in this present occupation, the last occupation and any future occupations was added to the demands. Around five hundred students and staff  unanimusly voted to stay in occupation until their main demands were met.

Cuts campaigners were able to rerout lectures, sheduled for the occupied theater- and contacted lectureres to minimise the disruption to teaching. Meanwhile the meeting decided that it wasn’t the occupation that might disrupt teaching, but the Vice Chanacellor’s refusal to collect the petition and engage with the meeting.          

 A delegate from the Brighton Workers Support Committee spoke to the meeting. He spoke of the unity between students and workers in Brighton. He referred to the students’ support for the postal workers  as an example of students and workers coming together. And spoke of last week’s Brighton March For Jobs, where the Sussex Six addressed a rally of workers and students. Another speaker from The Portsmouth Cuts Campaign called the Sussex students “an inspiration to us all”.

 After a break, the meeting reconvened with a discussion on what to do whilst occupying  the lecture theater. There was a feeling in the meeting that the theater should be used as a creative and educational space during the occupation. Films were suggested, talks and workshops. A need to make publicity materials like banners and flyers was highlighted, along with a press release and internet messages.

EVENING RALLY
The meeting broke up for a while. Some people came and went whilst others were busy organising pratical things. I went around the campus postering and alerting students to the occupation. At six oclock the meeting came together again for an evening rally. A packed lecture theater of around five hundred students and staff were joined by trades unionists and supporters. Prof Dave Hill, TUSC Parliamentary Candidate for Brighton and Socialist Resistence member spoke to the rally. He said, “Social studies conducted in the ‘70’s showed the optimum size for a seminar is twelve people, but today classes have thirty people. And the attacks on education will mean a further fifteen thousand lecturer jobs will dissapear around the country. Dave Hill emphasised that the students’ struggle is the workers’ struggle.. He said he was “humbled by the number of students on the TUC organised March For Jobs in Brighton which numbered six to seven thousand”. “Students unite and fight- It reminds me of 1968” he said. [lol]

He went on to say, “The students and workers struggles are one because life is about living in society not just about education and jobs. You can’t live on a five pound eighty minimum wage. Some people earn  five pound eighty a second. Its all down to surplas value.- As workers, don’t get to keep the value of what we produce”. “Over the time of the Labour government, the richest one percent has halved the proportion of tax they pay, while the poorest ten percent have doubled their’s. And still the poor is expected to pay for the bankers’ crisis. The government claims the cuts are unavoidable, but if we cut trident, cut the id scheme, and taxed the rich, education cuts would not be necessary. He summed up by calling for the reinstatement of  the Sussex Six and demanded those that made false allegations of hostage taking be called to account.

The RMT delegate described the Sussex students as a “real inspiration to the whole trade union movement”. And promissed to support them “until they are victorious”. He went on to tell how the RMT has recently voted for industrial action. Not over pay, but over the loss of fifteen thousand, rail infrustructure job loosess. These job losses are vital for the safety of the railways and will take the railway network back to the days of accidents. A UCU official spoke to the rally about their forthcomming strike next Thursday. He said the strike demanded “No compulsory redundancies and ACAS negotiations” and warned of more strikes next term. He called for student and lecturer solidarity, “We all have a common interest in good working conditions.The cuts are an attack on all of us” he said. “The management has been pressurised by the occupation of the theater, in defiance of the injunction. This is a result of the solidarity between workers and students.”

 PLANNING MEETING 
After an interval of some time a planning meeting was called. The meeting voted unanimously to stay over night, and perhaps indefinitly. Priorities were identified, such as to arrange a “teach-in” for the following day and to build support within the ancillary staff, as well as the wider community. Two support workers told the meeting of the solidarity the support staff of the Unite union felt toward the students and lectureres. The meeting organised itself in to working parties with groups for banner making, food, publicity, bedding and the like. A teach-in, a day of debate and critical discussion was planned. The meeeting arranged a demonstration and a talk by a History of Art lecturer from Portsmouth University on the student struggles of 1968.

 THOUGHTS
The student body on show here today unanimously recognised the context in which these cuts were taking place and laid the ultimate blame on the very capitalist system itself. The students involved in today’s action were not necessarily socialists, but of a more libertarian anti-capitalism. A most immediate indication as to where the students took their political cue was in their propensity to use hand waving gestures instead of hand clapping to signify approval. A practice popularised by the eco and libertarian trends in the anti-capitalist movement. The use of hand waving was a conscious reference of these trends. And expressed an identification with them.

Another thing that struck me was the amazing efficiency and coolness of the students. These guys were experienced pros – and any group considering an occupational protest would do well to speak to them. They knew what to organise and how to organise it.  The students emphasised their wish to make creative use of the space they occupied. Creative arts were high on the agenda. And they lost no time in forming creative working parties to set up events and workshops for the following days. The students’ demonstration exhibited the very best of contemporary anti-capitalist protest.

 UPDATE – FRIDAY 12th
Students at Sussex are continuing to occupy a lecture theatre in protest of the suspension of the Sussex Six. After twenty-four hours. The students still haven’t had their demands met or had any further contact with management, since they came to collect the list of demands and  petition yesterday afternoon.

 Today Sussex staff publicly defied a court injunction to come to the occupation and show their support. Sussex management are on the verge of being forced to make a humiliating climbdown and unconditionally re-instate the 6 students. Sussex UCU, following an unprecedented 80% turn out in their ballot, are now set for strike action over 115 job cuts. Staff at Leeds will be going out on strike against cuts this week, and unions at many other campuses are balloting for action. Ballots for strike action are underway or imminent at King’s, UCL and Westminster, along with London FE institutions. Student sit-ins have taken place in Essex, Sussex, UCL and Westminster.

 There was a demonstration on Library Square at 3 pm, in support of the occupation and against the cuts and suspensions. Management have granted a conditional return to the students suspended last week -but the conditions of their return mean they continue to be singled out and prevented from taking part fully in campus life. A video link was arranged so that the suspended students could speak to the occupation. Throughout the day the forum has been receiving messages of support from workers and students from all over the country and abroad. We need to seize the moment and apply as much pressure as we can nationally to Vice Chancellors, Peter Mandelson and the government. We need to stand in solidarity with all staff facing compulsory redundancy.

Take action this week! Support the strikes and the Sussex 6! Come to the demonstration on the 20th of March! We call for you to JOIN US in our programme across the following days, student, worker or ‘just someone intrigued’.

Download Word Version of this document with pictures: https://suacs.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/cuts-text-pics.doc
Download Word Version of this document -text only:  https://suacs.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/cuts-text-only.doc 

Come to the UCU demonstration against cuts in London on the 20th of March http://www.ucu.org.uk/index.cfm?articleid=3787
Attend the Education Activists’ meeting, Kings College London. 16^th March. 6.30pm https://suacs.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/16th-march-regional-meeting-flyer.pdf
Details of further action: https://suacs.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/cuts-further-action.doc

LINKS: 
Visit our blog https://suacs.wordpress.com/ for the full story to date and further updates.
Or join our F/b page: Guildford Against Fees And Cuts

Join the  F/b group: Sussex Stop The Cuts
Or Visit http://www.defendsussex.wordpress.com

Dan Vockins, Sussex NUS addresses a meeting of academics
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5ar1KjLKME&feature=channel

National Campaign Against Fees And Cuts – Statement of intent (6th February 2010)

This is the National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts statement of intent, passed at the National Convention on 6th February.

Statement of Intent
Fees, debt and marketisation are increasingly turning education from a right for all into a privilege for the wealthy. The NCAFC opposes all proposed and existing fees, course cuts, staff redundancies or reductions in education spending. Cuts are compounding 30 years of neo-liberal reforms which are turning our universities and colleges into businesses organised to produce profit and a pliant workforce, not critically thinking people and a better society.
Education can and should be funded not by student fees and taxes on the poor, but by progressive taxation. It should be an emancipator right, free and available to all.

We will fight for:
– A halt to all education cuts, the abolition of all fees and a living grant for every student, in FE and HE. Tax the rich to fund education

– Education not profit: business out of our schools, colleges and universities.

– A mass movement of students, including occupations, direct action and walk-outs from FE and 6th form colleges and schools, against fees and cuts. Solidarity with our lecturers, teachers and workers.

– Fees, cuts and marketisation are affecting all areas of education; schools, FE colleges, adult and part-time education institutions are being hit and must work together in the response. Regional meetings much be concerned with issues affecting all students in different types of education.

– This campaign also recognises that oppressed groups are being scapegoated due to the crisis, and that cuts will affect them the most. This campaign therefore commits itself to opposing all forms of racism including Islamophobia

– We are committed to solidarity and co-operation with Liberation organisations that share these values (including, but not limited to, the autonomous NUS liberation campaigns, all of which have free education policy), and condemn all forms of discrimination. Black, Disabled, LGBT and women students are systematically disadvantaged and discriminated by society and are disproportionately affected by fees and cuts.

– We are an internationalist campaign. We are for solidarity with students and workers across the world in our common struggle against exploitation and oppression. We are opposed to the victimisation of students and education workers over immigration status, as well as all deportations and immigration controls. We are opposed to all imperialist wars, sanctions and occupations: UK troops out of Afghanistan now.

– We will compile a national education activists’ contact database for co-ordinating activites

– We agree to initiate a national boycott of the National Student Survery (NSS) to oppose marketisation of education

– To send representatives to the Bologna process counter-conference on March 11th

– To support the call for a national demonstration outside the Autumn conference of whichever party wins the General Election.

– To support the teach-in at King’s College London on 27th February called by KCL UCU, No Cuts @ King’s and the London Education Activist Network

– Where possible ‘cultural evenings’ will be put on in student unions nationwide with poetry, theatre, music exhibitions and other artictic forms, with guest speakers and performers invited, in opposition to fees and cuts.

– To convene a meeting dedicated to the discussion of a united left slate in the NUS elections. All groups, networks, student unions and individual activists should be able to attend and participate.

– To change our name to the National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts

– That a national convener be elected from each region (North, South, London, East Anglia) to convene a regular open national steering committee with the regional conveners. This national organising meeting be open to all education activists.

N.B. The grammar of the statement is not perfect, as it is based on the original script from the conference; this will be addressed at the next national meeting. Please send corrections to ucl.free.education@gmail.com or againstfeesandcuts@gmail.com

Join the National Campaign Against Fees & Cuts F/b group: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/group.php?gid=108319208229

 NCAFC London Area: 
 http://ncafclondon.wordpress.com/

 27^th February: “Teach In” An alternative day of lectures  with speakers and guests. See F/b event. http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=285147785052 

National Campaign Against Fees And Cuts – Statement Of Intent

This is the National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts statement of intent, passed at the National Convention on 6th February.

Statement of Intent
Fees, debt and marketisation are increasingly turning education from a right for all into a privilege for the wealthy. The NCAFC opposes all proposed and existing fees, course cuts, staff redundancies or reductions in education spending. Cuts are compounding 30 years of neo-liberal reforms which are turning our universities and colleges into businesses organised to produce profit and a pliant workforce, not critically thinking people and a better society.
Education can and should be funded not by student fees and taxes on the poor, but by progressive taxation. It should be an emancipator right, free and available to all.

We will fight for:
– A halt to all education cuts, the abolition of all fees and a living grant for every student, in FE and HE. Tax the rich to fund education
– Education not profit: business out of our schools, colleges and universities.
– A mass movement of students, including occupations, direct action and walk-outs from FE and 6th form colleges and schools, against fees and cuts. Solidarity with our lecturers, teachers and workers.
– Fees, cuts and marketisation are affecting all areas of education; schools, FE colleges, adult and part-time education institutions are being hit and must work together in the response. Regional meetings much be concerned with issues affecting all students in different types of education.
– This campaign also recognises that oppressed groups are being scapegoated due to the crisis, and that cuts will affect them the most. This campaign therefore commits itself to opposing all forms of racism including Islamophobia
– We are committed to solidarity and co-operation with Liberation organisations that share these values (including, but not limited to, the autonomous NUS liberation campaigns, all of which have free education policy), and condemn all forms of discrimination. Black, Disabled, LGBT and women students are systematically disadvantaged and discriminated by society and are disproportionately affected by fees and cuts.
– We are an internationalist campaign. We are for solidarity with students and workers across the world in our common struggle against exploitation and oppression. We are opposed to the victimisation of students and education workers over immigration status, as well as all deportations and immigration controls. We are opposed to all imperialist wars, sanctions and occupations: UK troops out of Afghanistan now.
– We will compile a national education activists’ contact database for co-ordinating activites
– We agree to initiate a national boycott of the National Student Survery (NSS) to oppose marketisation of education
– To send representatives to the Bologna process counter-conference on March 11th
– To support the call for a national demonstration outside the Autumn conference of whichever party wins the General Election.
– To support the teach-in at King’s College London on 27th February called by KCL UCU, No Cuts @ King’s and the London Education Activist Network
– Where possible ‘cultural evenings’ will be put on in student unions nationwide with poetry, theatre, music exhibitions and other artictic forms, with guest speakers and performers invited, in opposition to fees and cuts.
– To convene a meeting dedicated to the discussion of a united left slate in the NUS elections. All groups, networks, student unions and individual activists should be able to attend and participate.
– To change our name to the National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts
– That a national convener be elected from each region (North, South, London, East Anglia) to convene a regular open national steering committee with the regional conveners. This national organising meeting be open to all education activists.

N.B. The grammar of the statement is not perfect, as it is based on the original script from the conference; this will be addressed at the next national meeting. Please send corrections to ucl.free.education@gmail.com or againstfeesandcuts@gmail.com

 Join the National Campaign Against Fees & Cuts F/b group: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/group.php?gid=108319208229

 NCAFC London Area: http://ncafclondon.wordpress.com/