Originally published March 22 2011

Last Thursday, the union of our lecturers, tutors and library staff union, the UCU (Universities and Colleges Union) went on strike in Scotland over changes to their pensions: changes that would see lecturers lose hundreds of thousands of pounds over their retirement.

The idea of a strike is to cause enough disruption to force employers to take notice, by withdrawing the services that employees provide. In this case, the employer has so far refused to negotiate at all, and this strike was simply to get them to the negotiating table. Next Thursday, there will be another strike nationwide, this time about pay cuts and job losses. Unless negotiations are agreed to, our lecturers will once again be refusing to work for a day.

As shutting down the workplace to cause maximum disruption to the employers is the ultimate aim of a strike, it’s important that as many people refuse to use the workplace as possible. The point is collective action: together we are more than a match for employers, and an effective strike can completely shut down a workplace. However, if some people go into work, it decreases the disruption, and the strike has much less power. This is why strikers set up picket lines at their workplaces to discourage people from going in. You might have seen them in front of various university buildings last Thursday.

Picket lines are not demonstrations, and they’re not there just to tell people why the strike is going on. They are there to let people know that if they cross them, they will be breaking a strike. That is, crossing a picket line means that you are actively making the strike less effective, and refusing to cross a picket line is not just a symbolic gesture of support, but an active part of the struggle. Picket lines are not just places where there are people standing in front of a building with placards; they are the entrance to every striker’s workplace, and every place where work is being done in defiance of the strike.

For people like train drivers or factory workers, it’s possible to let employers lose huge amounts of money by refusing to work; an incredible bargaining tool. For our lecturers, it’s much harder, because the disruption is often largely to students, and it doesn’t result in the same kind of losses to the employer. What’s more, our lecturers and tutors do not want to disrupt our learning; they are quite aware that the cuts are not our fault. This is the main reason that some lecturers did not join the strike.

Our teachers have limited ways of fighting, and strikes are one of the most powerful. That’s why student support is so vital. If lecturers know they have our support they are more likely to join the strike, and we can actively support them by not crossing picket lines. That is, if our lecturers break the strike by putting on lectures anyway, we can refuse to go to them. We can work from home instead of going to the library where some of the staff are on strike. We can’t strike ourselves because we are not employed by the university, but we are part of the university, and we can refuse to act as if it was business as usual while our lecturers fight for their futures.

Strikes do disrupt students, there is no way of getting around it. Nevertheless, students should be supporting their lecturers and tutors, out of solidarity and because the issues that the strike is about very much affect us. If you are thinking of going into academia, they are striking for you: those who are striking now will be much less affected by the changes than future academics. Not only that, the strike is also part of a more general fight, as the government continues to hack away at higher education as a public service. Attacks on our lecturers – on their pensions and pay, as well as when we lose them to job cuts – are attacks on our education. Missing a couple of lectures really is not that much of a sacrifice when you compare it to all that.

So, email your lecturers to tell them that you support them, and that you would like them to cancel your lectures. E-mail the Principal and tell him that you stand in solidarity with your teachers. Whatever you do, don’t cross a picket line.