Support builds for Indro Sen in CNWL dispute

The London Region of the UCU passed a motion of Indro Sen and the CNWL union branch at their meeting on Saturday. Indro Sen, UCU representative,  is currently suspended by the College of North west London. A meeting to express solidarity will be held at Willesden Library at 6pm on February 24th with an open invitationto students, parents, trade unionists and community activists.

The resolution states:

Motion to Support Sen and CNWL UCU – 28.1.17

London Region sends it solidarity to Sen and the Branch in their campaign against victimisation.

The LR resolves to:

1) Support the next strike day and join Sen and his colleagues on the picket lines 

2) Encourage branches to support a day of action in support of Sen on the next day of strike action. Eg taking solidarity selfies.

3) Encourage members to attend the public meeting on 24 February in support of Sen. 

4) Request that Sen’s campaign is publicised through UCU's national networks including Campaign news.

Strong support for joint strike at College of North West London

A UCU officer reported strong support for the joint UCU and Unison strike at the College of North West London today. This was part of a joint national strike across all English colleges demanding £1 per hour extra for all.

UCU said that they are in dispute with college employers because they failed to agree a pay claim aimed at achieving a fair deal for all further education (FE) staff.

Unions claim that the £1 per hour increase is fair, reasonable and not excessive and would go some way to recover the value of pay lost over recent years.

The the Association of Colleges (AoC), however, recommended all of their member colleges to freeze the pay of staff and subsequently declined to re-open talks, despite the recent governmenrt spending review decision to protect core funding for 16-19 year-olds and adult skills would be protected.

Since 2009 Fe workers claim they have received a cut in real terms  of over 17%.

UCU said:

FE has been hit hard by cuts and UCU and others in the sector have campaigned to defend funding. However funding cuts don't tell the whole story, colleges still make choices.

Colleges are deliberately choosing to spend less of their income on staff. Staff are asked to work harder and longer while colleagues lose their jobs and see other terms and conditions cut.

Without the ability to retain and motivate experienced and committed staff, colleges will find it hard to deliver education to our communities.

On Saturday March 5th there will be a conference on Defending Further and Adult Education at SOAS, Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, London WC1H OXG.

The conference is supported by UCU, NUS, Action ESOL, NATECLA and the Learning and Work Institute.

Book online HERE

Student protest over technician and teacher cuts at College of North West London

As students were registering for courses on Saturday at the College of North West London in Dudden Hill, Willesden there was a demonstration outside by mature student Zo Flamma-Hill of Women in Construction.  She was opposing cuts in technicians, teachers and librarians at the college and the failure of the college to inform students about the cuts. She was also concerned that the Students; Union had taken no action and that the redundancies had taken place in an atmospere of bullying.

She called for investment in education and an end to discrimination in terms of age and gender. Zo pointed out that women represent only 11% of the construction workforce. Most of these jobs are office based and only 2% work in the manual sector. CNWL has been attractiong women into manual trades, graduate construction professions and engineering.

She claimed that courses were being reduced to less technical ones geared to the provision of cheap labour with some apprentices paid only £2 an hour