On Tuesday December 3, Nottingham Trent University students joined University of Nottingham students in a protest for fairer wages and working hours for their lecturers.
More than 20 students protested in the Trent building at the University of Nottingham outside the office of UoN’s Vice Chancellor, Professor Shearer West.
This comes amid strikes being carried out by the University and College Union (UCU) in no less than 60 Universities across the country.
One NTU protester, Sam Harris, 20, a second year Politics and International Relations student, joined the protest in order to fight for justice for lecturers.
“It’s unfair that the Vice Chancellor gets paid hundreds of thousands, whilst we have lecturers who are overworked and underpaid,” Sam told us.
“We demand that the Vice Chancellor comes out in complete support publicly of the UCU strikes,” he added.
In a video posted by the University of Nottingham’s Student-Staff Solidarity Network, they stated that their protesters had taken occupation of the building in the night and “will not relinquish control until our demands are met”.
They continued: “Our demands are fair and reasonable, and we are calling for your support.”
“Visit us in the Trent building and join staff on the picket lines to oppose the injustice of pension cuts, pay inequality, casualisation and unfair pay and working conditions.”
The protesters’ demands include putting an end to the outsourcing of labour through UniTemps and zero-hour contracts, recommencing talks with UCU staff to improve wages and pensions, demilitarising the UoN engineering department and ending the draconian attendance monitoring for staff and students.
UCU members and protesters also formed a picket line outside of the University, advertising the protest and encouraging other students to join.
The students claim that they will not leave the Vice Chancellor’s corridor of the Trent building until their demands are met, but “do not take pleasure in causing disruption”.
By Faith Pring
Images credit: Sam Harris