National Union of Students

Maisie Sanders, an activist with Student Strike Solidarity, the Student Left Network, and Workers’ Liberty, will be standing for Vice President Higher Education (VPHE) in National Union of Students (NUS) elections being held on 16-31 March, in the run-up to NUS conference on 31 March/ 2 April. In that election she will be the only distinctly socialist left candidate, with a clear commitment to support the UCU dispute and to take a clear political stand against marketisation. A number of other candidates across three full-time officer positions are generally leftist; however, the emphasis is on...

I will be standing for the full-time position of Vice President Higher Education, in National Union of Students (NUS) elections next month. In that election I will be the only distinctly socialist left candidate, with a clear commitment to support the UCU dispute and to take a clear political stand against marketisation as well as push for piecemeal student demands. Most (but not all) of the candidates across three full-time officer positions are generally leftist, with good commitments, to, for example, restoring free education, closing the BAME attainment gap, improving mental health...

Members of the University and College Union (UCU) at Sheffield Hallam University (SHU) are striking in a local dispute, for six days from 25 November, in parallel with national strikes. UCU activist Camila Bassi spoke to Solidarity about the dispute. Q: What’s the background to the local dispute at SHU? What are the issues, what are the workers’ demands? A: Our dispute is over unpaid work and stress. Specifically, changes to our academic work planning and the restructuring of our professional services have led to an unprecedented intensification of workloads and a crisis point in academic...

Student-worker solidarity campaigns have been set up at almost every striking university, and many student unions have voted to support the strikes, including several who did not support them in 2018. Lancaster UCU said they had bigger numbers on the first day of this year’s strike than their biggest day in 2018. They also had a visit from Hong Kong students in solidarity with the democracy movement. Sussex students and UCU members held a demo after the picket, with a dragon, fire engine and speeches from Jo Grady and Caroline Lucas. Many UCU branches and student groups are co-hosting “teach...

Graham Hellawell has died, aged 55. Supporters and members of Workers’ Liberty may well remember Graham from when he took an active and leading part in the Campaign for Free Education in the mid-1990s. As President of Huddersfield University Students’ Union, Graham helped to set up CfE. For a while the Campaign was a very large force inside the National Union of Students battling against the Blairites’ attempts to ditch free education policy. Graham was also active in Unison, in health campaigns and in the fight against racism and fascism. In the 2001 General Election he stood as a Socialist...

The Augar review into post-18 education and funding, commissioned by Theresa May last year, was released on 30 May. As yet the government says only that it will “take very seriously the report’s proposals”. The report presents its aim as a more “accessible” system of higher and further education that provides “value for money” for both students and taxpayers and is more responsive to labour market demands. University student numbers have continued to increase steadily since 2009-10, but there has been a sharp decline in students choosing higher-level technical qualifications (Level 4 and 5,...

At the National Union of Students (NUS) conference (9-11 April), University of Bath student Zeid Truscott was disqualified from standing for the National Executive Council (NEC) on grounds of antisemitism. The biggest issues here are of elections being controlled by full-time officials, of the NUS’s general shutting-down of democracy, and of the culture of responding to anything by “banning” rather than argument. The Chief Returning Officer, who calls himself Jules “the rules” Mason, declared Truscott disqualified on grounds of antisemitic comments made at a Palestine Solidarity Campaign event...

The National Union of Student (NUS) Conference, 9-11 April in Glasgow, overwhelmingly voted through the biggest ever cuts to its democracy with the vocal support of the newly elected “left” leadership. The reforms gut student control and entrench a right-wing vision of NUS as little more than a toothless lobby group. But the Student Left Network produced a daily bulletin (picture is of it being given out!) and held regular left caucuses to campaign against the reforms and discuss the next steps in building a national, campaigning student movement and transforming NUS. Left-wing motions were...

This year’s National Union of Students (NUS) Conference in Glasgow (9-11 April), will be very different to previous years′. Elections will take place on the first day before motions debates begin, no official fringe meetings will take place due to "lack of funds for staff", and delegates will vote on a reform motion coming from the right-wing led by President Shakira Martin, which proposes scrapping all remaining structures which enable rank and file control of NUS. The Student Left Network (SLN) has been opposing these reforms since they were first announced. The soft left in NUS are also...