I’m both a student and a member of academic staff, so the announcement of a new round of action short of a strike by the University and College Union (UCU) has left me in a real predicament.
Cuts to pensions are the trigger for the ongoing industrial action, which has already taken the form of a series of strikes. But staff are also unhappy at being overworked, at ethnic and gender pay gaps, and at the growth of casualised, precarious employment.
As a student, I am constantly told I am a customer purchasing education and that as such, I have the freedom and power to make demands of my educational provider. I was part of the first group of students to experience the extreme increase in tuition fees, which rose from an average of £3,000 in 2011 to £9,000 a year later. The consumerist logic of education as a commodity can seem obvious: after all, the debt I have accrued to enable me to study will be mine to shoulder for years to come.
