UCU and NUS are holding a protest at the Scottish Parliament on Tuesday at 12:30pm

The University and Colleges Union (UCU) and National Union for Students (NUS) are staging a protest at the Scottish Parliament on Tuesday 22nd February at 12:30pm.

The Rally for Education is “protesting against an education system that fails to support students and leaves many of us struggling in poverty”.

The protest also stands in solidarity with the UCU’s strikes over cuts to lecturers’ pensions and the “Four Fights” – low pay, workload, precarious employment contracts, as well as gender and race pay gaps.

Matt Crilly, President of NUS Scotland and c0-organiser of the protest told The Edinburgh Tab that “real action is needed” from the Scottish Government over the “inherently linked fights” of reduced university and college budgets, staff working conditions, and student poverty caused by the cost of living crisis.

Edinburgh University Students’ Association (EUSA) has asked for Edinburgh students wishing to attend the rally to meet beforehand at 11:30am in Bristo Square to head to Holyrood down together.

The Edinburgh Tab spoke to Tara Gold, EUSA’s Vice President for Education, who said this was “an opportunity to make your voices heard” and that she hoped “students from Edinburgh will join those from across Scotland on Tuesday calling for a better future for Higher Education”.

She also added she was proud to convene “a community of learners and educators” to bring “attention to the interlinked challenges staff and students face, from increasing financial precarity to pay discrimination, unreasonable workloads and rising living costs”.

On top of this, she wanted to demonstrate “to university management that the challenges learners and educators face are not separable”.

The Edinburgh Tab has previously reported on the financial and practical difficulties Edi students have faced when flat hunting.

Now, NUS Scotland is trying to bring attention to the impact on students of the cost of living crisis – especially regarding energy bills that have risen exponentially in the past few months. This is in addition to students being excluded from a Scottish Government scheme to help with the increased cost of gas and electric.

Their President, Matt Crilly, told The Edinburgh Tab the rally has been timed deliberately to raised attention to this – something he says is causing poverty amongst students.

He said: “That’s why we are coming together to rally for education at a time when Scottish Government have chosen to abandon students being hit hardest by the rising fuel costs by excluding them for the one off £150 payment and real terms cuts to college and university budgets.”

UCU Scotland and NUS Scotland are keen to stress that they see “staff working conditions are student learning conditions” and that “the deliberate understaffing and current business model of Scottish universities is damaging not just to staff and student living and working conditions, but to higher education itself.”

The President of UCU Scotland, Lena Wanggren, is a tutor in the School of Literature, Languages and Culture at the University of Edinburgh who argues Edi students especially should stand in solidarity with the strike given her experiences and those of her colleagues.

Wanggren said: “I could tell so many horror stories: colleagues being so overworked they don’t get any sleep (for example due to marking an entire night), working 60-hour weeks, or precariously employed staff not receiving a contract or pay for months. Many hourly paid staff are without access to an office, or any paid time to meet students.

She also claimed many colleagues were experiencing burnout and considering leaving the higher education sector –  especially women, working class and Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic members of staff.

When asked about why students should care about the strikes and attend Tuesday’s protest, she said: “As staff, we often try to shield students from the reality of our working conditions, but in times of industrial action this becomes impossible.

“We are speaking out, and we are taking strike action, to demand of our employers that they address the rampant overwork, insecurity and discrimination in our institutions, and against an unnecessary cut to our pensions.

“We stand alongside students in this: your fight is our fight, as we do all we can to mend the current state of higher education.”

In response to claims made in this article, a spokesperson for the University of Edinburgh said: “Working with UCU, the University has made considerable progress on many of these important issues, which are common across the higher education sector. We have had an agreement in place with UCU since 2019 to ensure consistency of treatment for Guaranteed Hours staff in teaching and research focussed roles. We also have a large, mainly research-focussed, population employed on fixed-term contracts and are setting up a joint union working group with UCU to review how we manage these contracts.

“In October last year we announced that the ‘Sharing in Our Success’ staff reward scheme would once again recognise exceptional performance this year, and we have doubled the investment being made to recognise the contributions of more staff. We have strongly encouraged managers to focus use of this fund in ways that address pay gap challenges for people with protected characteristics. However, we know that more needs to be done on equality and to increase the diversity of our workforce. We therefore have institutional level action plans on gender and race in place to do so as a priority.

“We are listening to staff concerns about workload and pay. We already have in place principles to address workload issues, which have been collectively agreed with staff and UCU. We have been a Voluntary Living Wage employer since 2012 and we have not used zero-hour contracts since 2014.

“We are committed to a fair offering for staff and offer many generous staff benefits, including excellent flexible working and family friendly policies. We are investing in projects that further support staff health and wellbeing at work such as the new Employee Assistance Programme, which is offering a significant increase in the amount of counselling sessions available to staff.”

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