Our government does not care about us
Our Vice Chancellors do not care about us
But we care and we will not give up
Nor should you…
This time last week the Government presented an extraordinarily ideologically-driven, irrational budget that gave massive tax cuts to people earning hundreds of thousands of pounds, with little for those on lower incomes in desperate need of help during this cost of living crisis.
The Government has sent a strong signal: they do not care. They do not wish to see or understand poverty and suffering in our society. They have reverted to the economics of the snake oil merchants, peddling the known trickery and illusion of trickle-down economics.
In this extreme and unprecedented economic climate, can you and your family really afford to remain passive and not fight back? Think of your energy bills, think of the food you must buy, think of your increased mortgage payments. How can you afford not to fight for decent pay, conditions and pensions?
Our Vice Chancellors do not care about us. They refused to listen to the facts on the state of our pensions and allowed tens of thousands of pounds (collectively millions of pounds) to be taken from each of our pension funds. That money was ours and we earned it. Our Vice Chancellors let it be taken. Now we have evidence that the pension fund is not in deficit – why have our Vice Chancellors not responded? Why have they not helped us and our families?
Meanwhile, thanks to this Tory government, these same Vice Chancellors will have tax cuts in the region of £15 to £20,000 pounds per year. Let that sink in. Your overall pension fund was robbed of that sort of amount. And yet our Vice Chancellors, who wrongly let that happen, are now going to get that sort of money every year. Really? Are you OK with that?
Maybe some of our members are OK with that. Maybe they are getting a good tax cut. Maybe they don’t need the money.
To be a trade union member is to stand in solidarity. Many, many of our colleagues cannot afford the triple whammy of deteriorating HE pay, pensions and conditions, a cost of living crisis and a Tory government robbing the poor to prop up the ever more ridiculously wealthy.
A few months ago you probably thought the economy was in a bad state. That it couldn’t get much worse? Well, it can and it has. We are facing an economic and social crisis of an unprecedented nature.
And this is a crisis that is unquestionably caused by a redistribution of wealth from those less well off to the already very well off. When the Government said we had spent too much time on “redistribution”, they really meant that they were going to stop the piece-meal redistribution from the poor to the rich and do a full on, irreversible assault in favour of the wealthy.
The same is happening in higher education, with the redistribution of wealth from ordinary university staff to a thick and unnecessary band of middle managers and over-paid senior managers. It is a reflection of the world the Tory government seeks to create.
If you are not a UCU member yet – why on earth not?
If you do not support YES in the ballot – why on earth not?
If you have not voted – why on earth not?
Yes, the post is slow. We all wish for online voting, which would be much faster and easier – but which UK governments have made illegal for industrial action ballots, because they want to make this process harder. But if that is your reason for not voting – why are you a UCU member? Trade union membership is about solidarity. You don’t vote because of your views on head office: you vote because of the colleagues who have stood by you and who now need you to stand by them.
Please get in touch with the branch if you need help getting your ballot or voting.
Cannot be bothered voting during this economic crisis? Waiting for things to get better – then you could afford to vote?
Well, read last week’s blog. Things get better through trade union solidarity.
We care and we will not give up.
Join us. It is a better place to be.
If you can, please contribute to the local foodbank fund
At Lancaster UCU we are well aware of the struggles many of us and many in our community already face and how much worse it will get this winter. Before we embark on our fourth year of strikes, we want to show our solidarity beyond campus and recognise how much we all have to gain if we stand together in solidarity. We aim for our fight to be not only about a better higher education system for all, but about a fairer UK in which we all are able to afford a warm home and a full fridge.
Lancaster UCU 