some more info about the strike
Hello Everyone!
Thank you again for another glorious presentation. Well done also to all of you for being so gerenous with your contributions about lived experiences surrounding labour and value in class. The questioned raised were so pertinent and the connections between the readings were so well made that I forgot to ask about your visual essays and what those of you who watched the film thought about it too (although I have just read Connie’s insightful review). I also wanted to remind those of you who have not contributed to the blog (both in week 2 and 3) to please do so as soon as possible. Thank you!
I also want to provide you with some information about the strike. The following link has some very good explanations about why we are striking: UCU STRIKE
The site also provides you with information about what you can do to support the strike. I have selected 3 suggestions that I personally think are most useful.
1.File a complaint and request back tuition
Students should be demanding that universities put the huge sums of money they will save from not paying staff during the strike into student-facing activities.
We recommend you send this (partially prefilled) complaint FORM [I have created a link here]to casework@proctors.ox.ac.uk (Section 1 – personal info, and highlighted parts in the other sections still need to be filled out by individual students, but this should not take more than 5 minutes).
2.Join teach outs
You can find the organised activities during strike days in the following document:
TEACH OUTS OXFORD (this doc will be updated throughout the strikes).
My film screening is not on their yet but I hope to do the screening on wednesdays in week 5-6-7 from 3 to 5 pm. Location TBC
3.Reach out to senior management
People like the Chancellor, Vice Chancellor, and Pro Vice-Chancellors are the ones with the power to end the dispute between staff and university. Therefore, making clear to them that you support the fight of staff would help highlight what their greed is impacting.
It is very easy to do so if you follow the instructions below about how to send an email.
Template email
Send to:
- Vice Chancellor: Professor Irene Tracey
Email: vcweb@admin.ox.ac.uk / irene.tracey@ndcn.ox.ac.uk
Address: Vice-Chancellor’s Office, Clarendon Building, Oxford, OX1 3BG
Vice Chancellor NDCN PA: Lisa Lawrence
Number: 01865 276373
- Chancellor: The Rt Hon Lord Christopher Francis Patten
Email: chancellor@admin.ox.ac.uk (via Mrs Anna Alcraft, Exec Assistant)
- Vice Chancellor Executive Officer (Policy and Governance): Dr. James Marsden
Email: james.marsden@admin.ox.ac.uk
- Pro Vice-Chancellor (Development and External Affairs): Professor David Gann
Email: david.gann@admin.ox.ac.uk
Number: 01865 280520
- Pro Vice-Chancellor (Education): Professor Martin Williams
Email: martin.williams@eng.ox.ac.uk
- Pro Vice-Chancellor (Innovation): Professor Chas Bountra
Email: chas.bountra@cmd.ox.ac.uk
- Pro Vice-Chancellor (People & Digital): Professor Anne Trefethen
Email: anne.trefethen@admin.ox.ac.uk
- Pro Vice-Chancellor (Planning and Resources): Dr David Prout
Email: david.prout@admin.ox.ac.uk
- Pro Vice-Chancellor (Research): Professor Patrick Grant
Email: patrick.grant@materials.ox.ac.uk
——
For easy copying, email to:
vcweb@admin.ox.ac.uk; chancellor@admin.ox.ac.uk; james.marsden@admin.ox.ac.uk; david.gann@admin.ox.ac.uk; martin.williams@eng.ox.ac.uk; chas.bountra@cmd.ox.ac.uk; anne.trefethen@admin.ox.ac.uk; david.prout@admin.ox.ac.uk;patrick.grant@materials.ox.ac.uk
Suggested subject line:
Do your duty: meet staff demands and prevent further disruption
Dear Chancellor, Vice-Chancellor, and Pro Vice-Chancellors
I am writing as a student to express my deep concern that, once again, managerial mishandling is pushing academic staff, tutors, and administrators into Industrial Action.
The last year has been incredibly difficult for all of us. As students we have endured unprecedented illness, disruption to our study, difficult-to-follow messaging and we have been misled on a number of occasions by the government and by the University of Oxford. In this letter we wish to highlight the conditions of the administrative, professional and academic staff.
Staff have provided a rudder through the turmoil of the last years. Admin and academic staff have gotten us through the worst of the pandemic. They have offered countless hours of tutorials, switched in a blink to online learning, counselled us on everything from travel to adapting our work to the online format. They have adjusted deadlines, even when this meant foregoing their summer holidays. They have worked while they and their family members were ill with the virus and its aftermath, while their children and family members were home and requiring care and when they were shielding from the virus. They have compensated for failures in campus technological infrastructures, generated social activities and, in many cases, risked their lives to teach us face to face.
We have therefore been repeatedly shocked to learn that University staff and UCU members are being refused a meaningful offer:
- to end inequality pay-gaps, which are having a detrimental effect on marginalised staff members;
- to increase pay to meet ‘cost of living’ inflation, which is continuing to rise (RPI > 10%)
- to end the casualisation (or ‘Uberisation’) of our most crucial staff members, with demeaning contracts very few can survive on;
- to end the painstaking workloads staff have to concede to, leading to immense effects on mental, emotional, and physical wellbeing;
- to reverse the 2020 pension cut, which was a malicious abuse of pandemic financial losses across the industry
We believe these asks are nothing but reasonable, and forcing our administrative and academic staff to undertake Industrial Action will only have detrimental effects on us, as students. These members of staff are the reason we are here at the University of Oxford, the reason we stay at Oxford, and are, therefore, of the utmost value to students. To undercut the unions during negotiations and to continue these practices will only damage the identity of Oxford.
As students we have stayed the course, we have not dropped out en masse, we have adjusted to the changing conditions, shoddy infrastructure and disingenuous communications coming from senior management, and we have appreciated all of the work that tutors and administrators have put in to ensure that we continue to receive a quality education. We would therefore expect that the University of Oxford management join us in applauding this work and not use this moment to undermine the true santacity of education.
We appreciate that the financial situation is difficult and we are happy to join in conversations about the solutions that lie ahead, but to make decisions that will have unprecedented impact on student experience without involving us or the tutors and administrators that are holding all of this together is as misguided as it is cruel.
We hear about the importance of student experience but cannot, under any circumstances, believe that by refusing to meet the needs of staff, could result in anything but a steep decline. We know that our tutors are engaging in industrial action with heavy hearts and would like nothing more than to get on with the real work of the university – teaching and learning, as would we.
We therefore urge you to meet staff demands of the UCU, and other union bodies who are only requesting fair treatment in the academy. Failure to do so will worsen the student experience and cause us to lose faith, launch complaints, terminate and postpone study, further jeopardising the financial position of the university.
Sincerely,
[your name]
