Dear Students,

We hope you’re well. You may have heard that the University and College Union (UCU), which represents many staff across the College, is taking a vote on whether to take action to improve their working conditions. This is directly relevant to the quality of your education and we feel it is your right to learn about what is happening.

KCL Student Union is voting this Friday, October 22, about whether to officially support the UCU. Student voices matter for a satisfactory and quick resolution to these issues, so your vote counts!

In the interest of transparency, we would like to invite any students to attend an all staff & students meeting over Zoom this Thursday at 6pm. Join it here. We’ll summarise what’s happening and  we want to hear your questions, your views and hear your voice.

KCL Senior Managers has expressed their “deep disappointment” that UCU is balloting on the pension and the Four Fights disputes “at a time when we are all working together to prioritise the needs of our students.”

We disagree with this juxtaposition between the needs of students and staff.

Meeting the needs of the students is at the centre of our demands. First, obtaining fair pay and working conditions has a direct impact on our ability to fulfil our role as educators. Second, the entire King’s community has had to make extraordinary efforts throughout this pandemic to ensure smooth continuity and public health precaution, which has meant an increased workload for staff.

But despite all this, KCL Senior Management persisting in cutting out pay and pensions and has no clear plans to stop unsustainable workloads, the gender and ethnicity pay gaps, and rampant casualization.

• Our pay has fallen by 17.6% in real terms over the last decade.
• Bringing cleaners in-house (an achievement of student solidarity during the 2018 strike!) shed light on the real extent of the racialised pay gap at King’s, which increased from 13.2% to 20%, while the gender pay gap is still at the unacceptable level of 17.1%.
• We see no serious commitment on the part of SM to end casualisation. SM say that, “where possible, during the pandemic [they] extended fixed term contracts.” But we know that the contracts of at least 700 people were terminated while our Principal was taking £463,000 in 2020.  

What about the pension?

Our managers tell us that “taking industrial action won’t impact USS in any way.” But the 2018 UCU strike forced concessions, including the withdrawal of the threat to impose Defined Contribution pensions that has now returned. Without industrial action, our employers will force through cuts using the discredited USS valuation conducted in March 2020, during a stock market crash. This valuation is not accurate. In reality, there is no deficit in the pension scheme, but rather a huge surplus.

If these cuts are allowed, members will be paying more in pension contributions for greatly reduced pension benefits. The guaranteed income portion of our pensions (Defined Benefit) will be cut, everyone will be shunted towards a lump-sum pension that runs out if we live too long (Defined Contribution), and protection against +2.5% inflation rises will be removed.

Staff working conditions and students’ learning conditions

We are all acutely aware of the impact strike action could have on our students, this year more than ever. But we are also all too aware that the learning and wellbeing of students are negatively affected by unsustainable workloads, gender and racialised discrimination, casualisation, pay and pension cuts and undemocratic levels of inequality.

If the KCL senior management really cared about students, they would have not allowed the situation to get to this point.

We need to be clear: the reason why we are being balloted for strike is the intransigence of KCL administration. UCU has worked tirelessly, locally and nationally, to find alternative solutions to the combined crises of pensions, pay, conditions and inequalities. So if we’re forced to take action, the blame lies with the employers who have made the conditions of working and learning at UK universities so much worse – for students and staff alike. Our students know that – that’s why the NUS has come out in support of UCU’s campaign.

Students and staff can cooperate to achieve solutions to the above issues.

• You can learn more background, ask questions and engage in dialogue this Thursday, October 21 at 6pm
• You can voice your support by voting this Friday, October 22, in the KCLSU ballot to support the UCU strike action
• You can write to our Principal, Professor Shitij Kapur, using this sample email, and ask him to act. 

Together, we can demand KCL management to use the three-week ballot period to take concrete action, along with other employers, to end this ruthless attack on our working conditions and on students’ learning conditions.

Power concedes nothing without a demand! 

In solidarity,

KCL UCU Executive