According to the UCU, undergraduates will be the hardest hit by the

strike action, losing an estimated 575,000 teaching hours which will

not be rescheduled. Institutions affected include some of the UK’s most
prestigious universities including Oxford, Cambridge, Bristol, Durham,
Exeter, Imperial College London, Warwick and York.

Lecturers are striking because they oppose proposed changes to their

pensions which they say will leave a typical lecturer almost £10,000
worse off each year in retirement – or about £200,000 in total.

Universities UK (UUK), which represents university employers, has

proposed that in order to overcome a £6.1bn deficit in the Universities
Superannuation Scheme (USS), the fund should switch from a defined-
benefit scheme that gives a guaranteed retirement income to a riskier
defined-contribution plan, where pension income is subject to stock
market movements.

It sets a dangerous precedent for all public

pension schemes
Not only should students with dreams of academia support the strike.
17% of those who work in the UK are in the public sector, according to
a September 2017 report by the Office of National Statistics. And the
proposed changes by Universities UK could set a dangerous precedent.

The debate about pensions extends wider than to just lecturers: an

unsuccessful strike by the UCU in getting Universities UK back to the
negotiating table would mandate similar and subsequent attacks on
other professions and their pensions, especially in the public sector –
and likely elsewhere too. In other words, a failed strike probably
wouldn’t affect only our academic friends and teachers. It could have a
knock-on effect on all of our futures.

How students can support the strikes:

 Avoid attending lectures during the strike.
 Get in touch with your university’s UCU office and join your
lecturers on the picket lines – they can always do with more
numbers.
 Write/email your university’s vice-chancellor asking for a refund
of the lectures you have missed due to the strikes. Under the
increasing marketisation of universities, you have paid for a
service that has not been delivered to you.
  Talk to your friends and spread the word – the strikes will only
be successful if we get behind them, cause a headache for the
university management, and force them to address the issue.
Only then can we prevent the increasing squeeze on academics
and higher education.

Greg Rosenvinge is a politics student at Newcastle University.

A UUK spokesperson said: “The USS pension scheme has a deficit of

£6.1bn and the cost of future pensions benefits has increased by one
third since 2014. To maintain current benefits overall, contributions
would have to increase by approximately £1bn every year. We hope
that employees recognise that changes are necessary to put the scheme
on a secure footing, and that the proposed strike action will only serve
to unfairly disrupt students’ education.”
She is also facing calls to back away from a flat cut to maximum fees,
which would benefit higher-earning graduates. Cutting maximum fees
from £9,250 a year to £6,000 would take more than £3bn a year away
from universities, according to consultancy London Economics.
Analysts argue such a cut would benefit well-off graduates the most, as
lower earners do not pay back their full loan.