UCU Strike: Solidarity in Times of Crisis
The Department of Gender Studies stands in solidarity with colleagues participating in the UCU industrial action over pensions
We support our striking colleagues because:
- We do not accept the proposed reductions in the value and security of pensions. This is an unnecessary attack on a shared good which will leave everyone who pays into the USS worse off, especially those at the beginning of their careers.
- We understand the issue of pensions (as well as pay) to be a gendered and intersectional matter affecting women and minorities more than other workers. Erosion of pension security disproportionately affects early career and precarious workers.
- We value the right to collective voice of university workers whose intellectual, pastoral, and administrative labour makes the very existence of the higher education sector possible.
- We back our colleagues and UCU in the call for employers to return to meaningful negotiations and lament the lack of political participation represented by LSE union members' failure to return their ballots.
As part of this solidarity, we will not hold public lectures or research seminars on strike days.
Signed: Jacob Breslow, Helen Groves, Clare Hemmings, Marsha Henry, Hazel Johnstone, Naila Kabeer, Ece Kocabicak, Sumi Madhok, Anouk Patel-Campillo, Diane Perrons, Ania Plomien, Leticia Sabsay, Wendy Sigle, Emma Spruce, Kate Steward, Aisling Swaine and Sadie Wearing.
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