Strikes are continuing. Why after all they’ve been through are students supporting them?

Photo by Colin Lloyd on Unsplash

Every student has had that gloomy email concerning them with ‘strikes’ in their inbox over the last few months. Current students have already had their share of disruptions. Most have been affected by Covid, exams were either not done or completed in a limited capacity. Yet, according to an article in the student newspaper The Tab, 70% support strikes that will further disrupt their studies.

The survey of almost 11,000 students found universities which had the most student support was from Glasgow, Manchester and Cambridge which all had over 80% of support. The UCU (University and College Union) is campaigning for a ‘meaningful’ pay rise to ease the cost-of-living crisis, the end of insecure contracts, and a demand for universities to revoke cuts to pensions and restore benefits.

Thomas Marshall, a student organizer for the Socialist Workers Party, says that fundamentally, the perspective from students comes from a “class understanding” and how students are now “standing up to the hierarchy”.

This point would suggest why there is such a high percentage of students in favor are all in a more left-wing constituency for example, in Manchester and Glasgow, constituencies based in the area are occupied by Labour and SNP- both parties that hold some socialist views that they promote.

Thomas speaks to a lot of students through his job and says that these young people have seen the ‘shambles’ that the country is in, with issues including the cost-of-living crisis, rising energy bills, and rent. Ultimately, he says these societal issues are the catalyst to why there are so many strikes, as when the MPs receive an increase in wage from that annual salary of £81,932 to £84,144, it contradicts the messages received from those same MPs. He says that mass action is ‘necessary’ when asking for change: “Mass action is massive, not just two or three people gluing themselves, but imagine thousands of people walked out of their workplace at the same time”.

Josh Housden, a third-year student at Manchester Metropolitan university, and a member of the Demilitarise Education, says that students are supporting their lecturers after being exposed to the damning statistics on the conditions many lecturers work on. “Every worker deserves fair conditions… A vice Chancellor earns £300,000 whilst some lecturers are even on zero-hour contracts.”

Students paying over £9000 each year could put a mindset of most of them expecting their lecturers to show up to the lesson they ‘paid’ for. However, The Tab’s article suggests that the majority is with the support of strikers, even if it disrupts their learning for another year, but on a scale we have not seen before.

The student support from is explained by Josh through this “forward thinking generation”. A recurring shout from Josh was how a majority of students can “recognize the fundamental right of a strike, and this period of compounding crises has been a cause to that”. Those ‘compounding crises' during their young adult life would be Coronavirus, climate change, and a recession, just to name a few.

However, there’s also been some repercussions since the strikes too. Students have suffered and some believe they shouldn’t be the ones taking the punches. Hafiza Khanom, a student at Goldsmiths University, expressed her discontent on social media against the strikes. “It’s unfair that we’re the ones that take the wrong end of the stick because a lot of us support the reasons behind the strikes but we’re the ones suffering”.

Students like Hafiza believe they’re being caught in the crossfire, and there’s a consensus among students that lecturers have valid reasons to go on strike, but the overall question is why are they the ones being affected?

“My lesson time has been affected and its irreversible. We pay a lot of money here and we’re oblivious to the situation”. So even though there is a lot of support, the feeling of anxiety is roaming through with lesson time being taken away.

Overall, there is mass support for lecturer strikes as there’s an understanding among most students that they’re striking for important reasons, but the fact that they're affecting crucial learning periods, has been the catalyst for a few illustrating their dissatisfaction with the damage being supposedly done. Will that figure of 70% stay? Will it soon halt with more strikes? Or, will they keep supporting their lecturers during this tough period for everyone involved?