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Your working conditions are our learning conditions! Thank you for keeping up the fight against the marketisation of education. In solidarity, Department of Health Profession students at MMU

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Solidarity from across the (Oxford) Road!

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Solidarity from across the (Oxford) Road!

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Fight for your right to a safe workplace, but please stay safe...

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Solidarity from UoM - hope you get a good turnout!

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Solidarity from UoM - hope you get a good turnout!

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Keep, keeping on MMU, solidarity from UMUCU

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Keep, keeping on MMU, solidarity from UMUCU

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In Solidarity
UoM UCU members.

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What you are doing is so important, necessary and brave. In solidarity, from a UoM colleague.

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Solidarity from UOM - stay strong in the face of callous management. Staff must be kept safe !!!

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"Hold fast!" (Connelly, M., 2003). Let the light not be lost. Good luck and solidarity from down the road.

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"Hold fast!" (Connelly, M., 2003). Let the light not be lost. Good luck and solidarity from down the road.

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Support colleagues in MMU for safe working conditions. Solidarity from MACE, UOM.

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Support colleagues in MMU for safe working conditions. Solidarity from MACE, UOM.

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Good luck and keep fighting! Solidarity from up the road! 

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Good luck and keep fighting! Solidarity from up the road! 

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With you all the way! Stay safe, stay in solidarity. It's worth the fight to be safe; never giver up! - Kevin UoM

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With you all the way! Stay safe, stay in solidarity. It's worth the fight to be safe; never giver up! - Kevin UoM

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Sending you lots of strength. Keep fighting, as we might soon also be doing. Together we can make academia a better place. From a UoM colleage.

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You deserve better! Keep strong, keep as safe as you can.

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Thank you for your leadership.

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We shouldn't have to fight for our basic workplace rights, but here we are again. Fight for what you need, MMU UCU. Solidarity!

Amy Conwell, Chair, CUPE 3902

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Solidarity and unconditional support from U of Toronto! Fight for what is your right is never a waste of time. Good luck!

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Unsafe working conditions and workload intensification were issues facing workers at universities around the world before the pandemic. The fight is all the more urgent now. Sending solidarity from Canada. 

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Unsafe working conditions and workload intensification were issues facing workers at universities around the world before the pandemic. The fight is all the more urgent now. Sending solidarity from Canada. 

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Jasmine Chorley Foster, University of Toronto, member Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 3902

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We have all seen this year how far Universities are willing to go in their prioritisation of profit over people’s lives and jobs. You have our full solidarity as you go into this dispute. Staff working conditions are students’ learning conditions so we support you fully in fighting for better. Staff and students unite and fight ❤️

MCR Students B4 Profit (@studentsb4prof)

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MMU UCU members, thank you for taking this important action forward, your struggle for safety is a fight for us all.  You have the weight of a movement behind you. When employers fail to protect our physical and mental health, we must fight back. Solidarity. 

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MMU UCU members, thank you for taking this important action forward, your struggle for safety is a fight for us all.  You have the weight of a movement behind you. When employers fail to protect our physical and mental health, we must fight back. Solidarity. 

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Shelly Asquith, TUC

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Being the Leadership your University needs

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Being the Leadership your University needs

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The intransigence of MMU management in the face of the largest public health emergency in decades has been astounding. They have declined the responsibility to lead, and are treating staff, students, and community cheaply. So impressed with the union stepping up in the way it has! Solidarity.

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Solidarity greetings from Zero Covid Lancashire. There should be no business as usual or unsafe work during the pandemic.

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Solidarity greetings from South West Lancashire NEU. Safety fears and workload are key battles we all face. Your fight is our fight.

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Unite North West Service Industry Branch says:

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Unite North West Service Industry Branch says:

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We stand in solidarity with UCU staff at Manchester Metropolitan University, who have launched a consultative ballot for industrial action to counter the imposition of unsafe working conditions and intensified workloads.

University management and the government have sidelined the voices of staff, pushing through policies which favour the university's bottom line, while risking the safety and wellbeing of staff and students and their ability to provide quality education. This is the logical continuation of the marketisation of education we have seen over the last years. Already Manchester students have fought back with an inspiring victorious rent strike. Now, MMU UCU us taking a stand, to protect their members and their students. But they will not be the last.

The pandemic has opened the door for similar attacks on workers by bosses in every workplace, all in the name of profit. Whether it be in the form of job losses, pay cuts, increased workloads, or eroded terms and conditions, management have forced staff to bear the costs and the dangers of the crisis.

As service industry workers also facing mounting attacks, we hope that the staff at MMU will inspire similar action, not only from across the education sector but the whole workers movement. Whatever sector or trade union we may be a part of, all of us face this same struggle, and it's our duty to stand together and mount a united effort to resist these impositions and win a better life for us all.

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Sending solidarity to you all from your post-92 colleagues in Liverpool! We are with you!
Bee,  Chair LJMU UCU

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Sending solidarity greetings from the national FEC and FE sector. We're with you ✊💜

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We are with you
We support you
We are here for you! 👊🏼

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Solidarity
100% with you comrades
Dave Bosher
Unite Union Member, Manchester People’s Assembly and Counterfire ✊

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Solidarity in the fight to defend members, students and communities.

I'm sure you will smash 50% turnout.

Anthony O'Hanlon
University of Liverpool UCU

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Utmost support to comrades at MMU, very best of luck in the fight to free education from capital and the fight for your collective dignity ❤️

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As an education worker in a school, I know firsthand how important health & safety is to our working conditions. Your organising, struggle and demands for dignity in the workplace is a beacon of hope for workers across Manchester. Keep fighting, we're with you 100%! 🚩🚩🚩
Vik Chechi-Ribeiro
Manchester National Education Union

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Solidarity from an Alumnus

MMU staff were always effing great and they deserve better. Treat them properly and think about things! You got this, people!

P.P

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Stay united, stay strong! Solidarity!

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Full solidarity to all our comrades at MMU, we're behind you!

Fred Carter, UCU Edinburgh

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Keep standing up for yourselves!

Good luck!

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Solidarity from Zero Covid, the campaign to beat the pandemic. You are setting an example that should be widely followed. 

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Solidarity from Zero Covid, the campaign to beat the pandemic. You are setting an example that should be widely followed. 

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In the UK we hear little of the successful Zero Covid Strategy. But we hear a lot of talk about the alternative: 'learning to live with the virus'.

We have found out what this means.

Living with repeated on-off lockdowns, the collapse of hospitality, entertainment and transport, millions living in unemployment, and of course scores of thousands not living at all, taken before their time. And there are the many long-term impacts on both physical and mental health arising from a continuously festering pandemic.

It means living with no end in sight until effective vaccines are approved and rolled-out - whenever that may or may not be.

The Government's latest four-week lockdown is too little, too late. The experts at Independent SAGE predict that with universities and schools still open, it would take far more than one month to reduce daily new cases to a manageable level, costing extra lives.

Stronger measures

Stronger measures are urgently needed to reverse the rapid rise in infections. A full lockdown would quickly reduce community transmission close to zero. This would grant desperately needed time to - at last - replace the discredited private test and trace system with one based locally: on council, NHS and public health structures, recruiting contact tracers locally. This infrastructure will be needed even after Covid, because pandemics are becoming more frequent, driven by wanton destruction of our ecosystems.

Individual freedoms

What about individual freedoms? Suppressing the pandemic means empowering communities and individuals to act safely, look after each other and regain our freedom faster. Zero Covid is not about repressing the people and forcing us to live forever under strict controls. Quite the opposite. The pandemic will be over far sooner with a Zero Covid Strategy than with the government's drawn-out, on-off approach.

Social solidarity

Instead of crude police enforcement - which disproportionately targets black and Asian people, young people, and those in precarious work, on benefits and in overcrowded housing - there should be collective discipline and social solidarity, with financial support, clear messages and information, free masks and sanitiser and community groups funded by councils to support the at-risk, the sick and the lonely.

Safe workplaces

Where key workers can't avoid going to work despite the virus, the government should coordinate investment to make workplaces safe, with extra space, equipment, ventilation and staff. Workers and their trade unions should be fully involved in ensuring safe working conditions in line with the Covid-19 Safe Workplace Charter. Only workplaces with Covid Safe certification should be allowed to open.

100% of wages and compensation for the self-employed

All workplaces that are not absolutely essential should close during the lockdown. The state must fully compensate workers, including the self-employed, for loss of earnings due to measures taken to suppress the pandemic.

Wherever workers are off sick, isolating, shielding, not working due to caring responsibilities, can't work safely, or lose work due to the pandemic or action to control it, the government should guarantee 100 percent of their wages. Where workers are made redundant, benefits should be increased and made available immediately. And no one should be homeless during this pandemic: the ban on evictions must be extended indefinitely.

Extra resources for those in need and at risk

Extra resources are needed for disabled people, black people, Asians, other minorities and people in poverty.

With state schools closed, families need to be given all the resources enjoyed by better-off families whose kids attend private schools: laptops, cameras and the very best distance learning tools.

Reduced international travel

During lockdown, international travel should be reduced to an absolute minimum. Once we have reduced infection levels that can be managed by the new FTTIS system, all arrivals to the UK should be screened for the virus and quarantined if necessary. If this process is made clear before people embark on international travel, they will be able to decide for themselves if they still want to go ahead with their plans.

This - along with a new local find, test, trace, isolate and support (FTTIS) system - will keep the virus suppressed, just as it has in Australia, New Zealand, Taiwan, Vietnam, China and South Korea.

Zero Covid is possible. It is a future worth fighting for. Please join us in that fight to get our lives back and live in a Zero Covid UK.

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In the UK we hear little of the successful Zero Covid Strategy. But we hear a lot of talk about the alternative: 'learning to live with the virus'. We have found out what this means. Living with repeated on-off lockdowns, the collapse of hospitality, entertainment and transport, millions living in unemployment, and of course scores of thousands not living at all, taken before their time.

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Wishing your campaign every success. UCU members are an inspiration to all workers right now.

John Pye, secretary Manchester TUC and Bolton Council Unison member

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Huge solidarity with your fight. If there's anything we can do to show support we will be there!

Cllr Jade Doswell, Labour, Fallowfield

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All the best for your ballot and your dispute.
Annette Wright
PCS HMRC Greater Manchester Branch Chair
Labour Councillor in Hulme
Manchester Trades Council Exec

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You have my full support and I will take this to my branch Greater Manchester Mental Health Unison Branch

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Good luck in your fight.

Sending energy and strength.

Pascale, Better Buses for Greater Manchester

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Solidarity and good luck with your fight - if we don't fight for safer working conditions and against growing workloads now, things will keep getting worse, leaving the burden with those of us entering academia. Your fight is everyone's fight!

Morgan Powell, PhD student and UCU member at UoM.

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We're right there with you

Billy G, UCU Loughborough

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Solidarity greetings from Edinburgh.  Your fight is our fight and we stand with you.

Grant Buttars, UCU Edinburgh

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Sending a clear message that workers will fight and stand together to ensure a fairer, safer workplace for all is how we have always improved our collective conditions. It has not been passed down by the few without this struggle. Your ballot will send encouragement to all that we can have a voice and there is power when we come together.
We are the many they are the few and your influence/power flows directly from this fact.
Solidarity,
Ryan Towers Unite member NEU Official

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In UNISON we face a lot of the same issues as the universities sector: from an excessively demanding workload to unsafe conditions and casualisation.

Good luck in your fight and let's hope it inspires workers in other sectors to fight back!

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Good luck with your ballot and your fight for a safe and fairer workplace. Getting over the anti-democratic ballot thresholds isn't easy, but it is possible - if members get involved in campaigning and talking to colleagues. You can do it!

Ian Allinson
President, Manchester TUC

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Solidarity and support to MMU UCU from all at MCFC Fans Foodbank Support

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All power to your elbow - every struggle, especially in these times, is a beacon of hope and encouragement to workers everywhere that we don't have to put up with bad conditions. We can choose to fight! #UnityIsStrength
Let us know how we can support you.
Beth from Greater Manchester Tenants Union