Register here for Wednesday’s meeting on the Four Fights & Black History Month (27 October 6pm)

We are happy for the support we received both from the National Union of Students and our own KCL students, who wrote this open letter to the principal, Prof Shitij Kapur, urging the College to meet UCU’s ‘demands immediately before any action is necessary.’ But it is also clear to us that some students, especially third-years, who experienced a rather rocky few years with the strike in 2020 and throughout COVID-19, are worried about potential further disruption.

NUS President and UCU Secretary in front of the Universities and Colleges Employers’ Association, October 2021

We want to reassure our students that your lecturers and professors love teaching you and have been forced to ballot on strike action by the intransigence of our employers. It’s them, not us, who are creating the conditions for more disruption after one and half years of pandemic. Staff have kept the university going through their commitment and have faced the total lack of leadership of a senior management who failed properly to plan during the pandemic, did not renew the contracts of hundreds of precarious workers despite rising student numbers and forced staff to teach on campus during the deadliest phases of the virus. And now they are forcing through cuts in our pay and pension while keeping their own pay levels secret.

For us, the real issue is whether students support our demands and are ready to put pressure on our employers to make it possible for these demands to be met. We will never tire of repeating that our working conditions are also students’ learning conditions.

Pic from 2020 UCU strike

We are not just campaigning on pension, pay and casualization. A key part of the UCU’s Four Fights campaign relates to addressing ballooning workloads and the scandal of the gender, ethnicity and disability pay gaps in the University. These gaps are a stain on our reputation as a university supposedly committed to equality, diversity and inclusion. Their very existence is inconsistent with KCL’s duties under the Equality Act 2010. Details of 2020 pay gaps, by faculty and according to KCL’s own data, are available here. These concerns are shared by students as they affect who is teaching them and those teachers’ ability to provide effective and inclusive education.

For more information on this issue – and the wider Four Fights campaign and the struggle for equality at King’s – we encourage students and staff to two join national UCU negotiators, a representative of KCL UNISON and other KCL students on Wednesday 27 Oct at 6pm. In 2018 KCL students stood with staff in opposing cuts to staff pensions that are now being revisited by employers and they also campaigned for the insourcing of KCL cleaners and security staff. Insourcing was not a concession but an achievement of our movement. It shows that it’s only when students and workers stand together that we are at our strongest and can make the University a better place. There’s much more than pay and pension at stake in the current disputes. It’s the future of our universities. Please come and discuss how to get involved! 

Visible Skin, Invisible Gaps: Black History Month and the Four Fights

Wednesday 27 October 6pm – Zoom registration here

To celebrate Black History Month, Kings College has organized a wide range of events across the university, including the exhibition ‘Visible Skin’, which rediscovers the Renaissance through Black Portraiture. But what do the portraits of Black workers in 21st Century academia tell us about the College itself and the Higher Education system in general? With pay diminished by wage freezes and inflation, unsustainable workloads, ethnic and gender pay gaps and casualisation, the university is currently a broken environment for both staff and students. That is why the UCU is balloting members on strike action on the 4 Fights! Join us for a special event on UCU’s 4 Fights – on pay, workload, ethnic and gender pay gaps and casualisation – and how we as workers and students can transform the university. We are joined by national UCU Four Fights negotiators Dr Marian Myer and Dr Robyn Orfitelli, by a KCL UNISON rep and by three KCL students leading on different campaigns to discuss why the 4 Fights dispute and the current ballot for strike action matters for our diverse community.

Dear President & Principal Professor Shitij Kapur,

I hope you’re well. I am writing to you because, as a student of KCL, I am deeply concerned about the current working conditions of our staff. During the pandemic, KCL staff worked tirelessly to keep my education going and to move teaching and learning online.

But it does not seem that KCL senior management acknowledges and appreciates their efforts. Even if it recognises that workloads are much above the contractually defined ones, KCL senior management it is supporting employers’ attempts to cut their pensions by at least 25% and a 16% real term decline in their pay since 2008, 

I appreciate KCL’s focus and emphasis on combatting inequality and its cutting edge research on these matters. KCL is committed to race equality and gender equality. And yet, KCL does not seem to follow the statements and research agenda at its own institution. In material terms, the gender pay gap is still 17.1% and the ethnicity gap is 20%. I ask the university to practice what it preaches. It should eradicate these pay gaps right now.

Student learning conditions are teachers’ working conditions. Inequalities among staff are reflected in significant students’ attainment gaps at King’s. The increase in workloads means that KCL staff have less time to engage with my studies. The fact that a lot of my teachers’ contracts are short-term only adds needless stress to their work.

Given this increasing precarity of the academic profession, and unacceptable inequalities, I am deeply concerned about the quality of education for future years.

When staff and students complain about this discrimination at work, they should be congratulated. Instead, the university condemns the actions taken by staff when the university leaves them no other choice.

This decision by the university has devastating consequences to my education and I demand that the university reverses the cuts and the increases in workloads, and eradicates the pay gaps.

We all want to attend our classes after one and half years of pandemic. Our lecturers and professors love teaching us.

We demand KCL senior management plays a part too.

Kind Regards,