Workers in the UK higher education sector are facing the most severe attacks on them in many decades. Nearly all UK universities are cutting jobs and/or courses. Over 10,000 jobs will be lost in two years, and there is a probability that one or more universities will no longer exist within the next year or so. Institutions are seeing workforces being reduced by 20% or even more. The UK higher education (HE) sector is falling apart, and like so many other sectors this point has been arrived at via a deliberate strategy from the bosses and government. ---- Like with the steel, water, bus and train industries, or the NHS, the focus on the creation of competition, markets and privatisation has led to a situation where the HE sector is no longer able to survive, let alone function as a genuine public service.
The current funding model of linking HE funding to fees for teaching students has failed. Even charging UK students more than £9,000 per year does not generate enough income for most institution bosses (in Scotland students themselves do not have to pay these fees but ultimately the same payment model is still in effect). Until the last couple of years, the 'shortfall' was made up from charging international students exorbitant teachings fees. But anti-immigration policies pursued by multiple governments put international students in the firing line, and new restrictions were introduced on student visas. This has meant that many universities have seen a big drop in international student numbers in the last two, with a resultant significant drop in income.The response from university vice-chancellors and their underlings has been to attack workers and harm students. The former by cutting jobs and working conditions, the latter by removing 'unprofitable' courses, forcing students into narrower, ideologically approved, options.
The bosses' organisations, UUK and UCEA, argue that keyway to fix the problem is to increase tuition fees for UK students. Leaving aside any moral argument this strategy is doomed to failure. 2024 saw the first drop in in total number of students in HE since 2014 (where a drop was associated with the introduction of Coalition government's £9,000 fee cap). The cost-of-living crisis, and cuts in salaries/jobs in the UK, means that an increasing number of school leavers are choosing not to go to university. Increasing fees to £12,000 of so would only cause more to question about going to university and so offers no solution to problems of the sector.
Workers in the sector are attempting to fight back, with local industrial action having taken place The University of Sheffield, The University of Bradford, Bournemouth University, the University of Dundee, Durham University, Newcastle University and many more. And there will be further action at the local level in the coming months. While such industrial action does deliver some results in mitigating job losses, it is trying to stem a flood with a bucket.
There has been a lack of intention from trade unions (especially Unison, Unite and the GMB) to extend and join up the struggle across institutions to address the symptoms, rather than just alleviate the causes, of the problems. This lack of purpose from union establishment was shown in the recent national ballots for industrial action. UCU and EiS failed to achieve the required turnout on their aggregated ballots, while the other unions either did not meet the threshold, or holding disaggregated ballot only managed to obtain authorisation for industrial action in a small number of institutions.
Longer term what is required is - as for public transport, water, electricity etc - is the recognition that post-16 education (and this should include further education and adult continuing education not just HE) is a public service and needs to be organised as such. Workers and students in post-16 education need to have control over their workplaces/places of study.
This is a hard challenge but students and workers in post-16 education not only joining up across different universities and colleges but also combing their fight with workers (and users) in other sectors and not just providing solidarity but acting together wherever possible does provide a path to such a future.
In the short-term university workers are going to have to educate, agitate and organise to defend jobs and conditions. Look out for the picket lines at your local university.
https://www.anarchistcommunism.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/jackdaw24_low-res-1.pdf
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Link: (en) UK, ACG, Jackdaw #24 - Higher Education Workers Face Massive Attacks (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]
Source: A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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