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of 100 signatures

FROM THE STUDENTS AT THE DEPARTMENT OF VISUAL CULTURES IN GOLDSMITHS, IN SUPPORT OF THE UNIVERSITY AND COLLEGE UNION (UCU) STRIKE

In an email to all Goldsmiths students regarding the strike, Warden Professor Frances Corner stated: “Goldsmiths is currently in deficit, with this financial loss meaning we cannot afford to meet the union’s demands over pensions and pay”. With tuition fees and student numbers rising, we ask: where is our money going?

Uncritically arguing within the logic of ongoing commodification and privatisation of Universities is an attempt to silence our lived experience. This strike is an opportunity for all to come out in solidarity and demand policy change, together with other Higher Education institutions, that are similarly forced to manage austerity.

This strike is not just about staff pensions and pay. Universities are increasingly run more like businesses than places of learning. Within this framework, students equal money and education is a profit-driven industry.

While Vice-chancellors and Senior Management staff continue to line their pockets, lecturers and other staff are subject to discriminatory pay gaps - with female and Black, Asian and minority ethnic staff earning less than their white and male counterparts - casualized work, huge workloads and increased outsourcing. As we see it, this strike has significance on a national dimension.

We are hoping not only for the improved working conditions of the staff in the Universities, and the resulting improvement of the quality of education for the students, but also for a deeper evaluation of the current state of Higher Education and public services more generally.

We take this as an opportunity to reflect on the damage that austerity policies have done to the public good and basic rights in the United Kingdom - in terms of access to education, health, housing and more.

We invite Goldsmiths Senior Management, Universities UK (UUK) and the government to do the same. We hope that those working in and beyond the education sector will recognise the wider significance of the strike and join a fight that will benefit us all.

In solidarity,

Callum Bradley
Lauren Collee
Paola Debellis
Mercedes Fernández
Fabienne Formosa
Yara Haskiel
Naomi Hennig
Francesca Lazzarini
Ewen Ma
Harriet Middleton Baker
Katherine Newman
Georgia Perkins
Kelly Rappleye
Clara Rocha
Ane Rodríguez Armendariz
Patricia Roig
Kyungmin Son
Maya Watanabe
Emma Wingfield
Sign the petition

Open letter to Warden of Goldsmiths (UNIVERSITY OF LONDON), PROFESSOR FRANCES CORNER

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