What has happened to the student movement?

Is a very good question since two big demonstrations one a lot smaller and angrier than the last 2013 has been a somewhat quieter year for the students movement. Not being a student myself I look on from outside but the anger on tuition fees, lack of EMA, rental prices for students, cost of studying all haven’t gone away surely and the anger can’t have either. No doubt much of this lack of fight can be laid at the door of the NUS who have failed to mobilise students to defend education and mount a challenge to this rotten government. Socialist students which are affiliated to the socialist party have been doing excellent work on campuses up and down the country having our best year yet in terms of numbers. But our influence is still small. We will be putting pressure and calling on the NUS to organise a national demonstration this autumn very shortly. There have been small victories and incidents Sussex university had a fantastic demonstration with an occupation which was disgracefully evicted a while back now in protest over privatisation of the education system. Again NUS did not show up most students now are starting to fight without their own union of students this is a worry but not unsurprising given the role the NUS places with its pro labour party leadership and timid outlook. Recently a victory at Birmingham university has shown an example how students and workers when they unite can win victories even on a small scale and not totally resolved is a good start and shows we can win. Maintenance & support staff at University of Birmingham are celebrating near-total victory as university management have abandoned restructuring plans. 361 Hospitalist and Accomodation Services (HAS) staff faced compulsory redundancy, pay cuts and being forced to work anti-social hours under plans announced in March; the £407,000-a-year pay packet of the Vice-Chancellor would have been unaffected. The University also planned to force staff to work weekends and holidays for no extra pay. These plans have all been dropped and staff has won extra flexibility in setting their own schedules. Edmund Schluessel - NUS NEC-elect, UCU and Socialist Students Birmingham University Unison worked closely in partnership with the students’ union, Birmingham Guild of Students, to fight back against the cuts and job losses. Staff and students demonstrated together against university management on May Day, and, in a major show of solidarity, the Students’ Union put out a call for a national student mobilisation in support of the Birmingham HAS staff. In a statement, student campaigning group, Birmingham Defend Education, said, “This outcome demonstrates that protest and direct action work. Unions were negotiating on these issues behind the scenes for two months, whilst the University kept announcing further attacks. As soon as they started to sign up large numbers of new members and talk about strike action, and we sent our statement to David Eastwood, the University abandoned the majority of their attacks within two weeks. This also illustrates the power of students and staff when working together. We should remember that staff and students, not management, are what make the University work. If we recognise this, and the power that we have when we stop doing what we’re told, we can claim the conditions of work and study that we want to see.” The problem of low pay remains unresolved. Many maintenance staff at Birmingham and dozens of other universities is paid only the national minimum wage, while the university makes annual profits of nearly £30 million. Lecturers and other uni staff on the national pay spine have received real-terms pay cuts every year since 2009. The five-way consortium of university trade unions, consisting of UCU (lecturers), Unison, Unite, GMB (all support staff) and EIS (teaching trade union), are meeting with employers on the 21st to discuss the latest 0.8% pay offer. The five unions should unanimously reject the offer and prepare for national coordinated action to stop the pay cuts and job losses, and push the TUC (Trade Union Congress) to name the day for a 24-hour general strike against all the cuts. As an incoming Socialist Students member of the National Union of Students’ (NUS) executive I will push for NUS to learn from Birmingham students’ example and to give the fullest possible support to any action in defence of education and against the cuts. Once students come back after the summer there will be new angry students paying higher fees getting charged even more to live and get by. It’s a disgrace that the NUS would rather spend their time doing pointless survey’s and focus on the smaller issues not that they are not important but when our whole education system is at threat surely their priorities could be better placed. With socialist students getting its first member elected on to the NEC of the NUS in Edmund Schluessel we can now begin to gain influence beyond our own ranks. A statement put out by Edmund on socialist students website said that students need a voice and for too long the NUS has not represented the real views of students on the ground. Our aim is to turn the NUS into a fighting union to give students hope and an avenue to fight back in. Socialist student’s basic aims and demands are: What We Stand For Education  Abolish tuition fees. Write off student debt.  Restore EMA. Campaign for full living grants to cover the living costs of all students in post-16 education – including those at university.  No to higher and further education funding cuts. Defend every course, job and service.  No to academies and Free Schools.  For exam boards and all other privatised services to be taken back into public ownership – no repeat of this year’s exam mistakes fiasco!  Stop the marketisation and privatisation of universities in Britain. No to the government’s white paper and a two-tier Higher Education system. No university should be allowed to go to the wall!  Lift the cap on places and publicly fund the expansion of high quality higher education.  Build local anti-cuts campaigns and ‘Youth Fight for Education’ groups in every school, college and university, linked on both a regional and a national level.  Support action taken by education workers to defend their conditions and our education –their fight is our fight.  For the transformation of Students’ Unions into fighting organisations, with bottom-up democratic structures.  For a fighting NUS.  For education that is fully funded, publicly owned, democratically run and universally free at all levels – a socialist education system. Work and Welfare  Support the Youth Fight for Jobs campaign.  No to mass youth unemployment- for a decent job for all.  No to the government’s slave labour ‘workfare’ schemes. For decent training opportunities and apprenticeships for young people which pay at least the minimum wage, with a guaranteed job at the end.  No job losses in the public or private sector. When private bosses claim they can’t afford to maintain jobs, we say open the books. Let us see where the money has gone.  For nationalisation of companies threatening closure, under democratic control with compensation given on the basis of proven need.  Fight for a minimum wage of at least £8 an hour as a step towards a living wage.  No cuts to housing or other benefits.  End lower benefit rates for young people – for the right to Job Seekers Allowance at 16.  No to ‘workfare’ and slave labour internships. For decent jobs paid at least a minimum wage of £8 an hour.  Support the National Shop Stewards’ Network anti-cuts campaign which fights all cuts to jobs and services  The immediate re-opening of all youth services that have been closed, including reinstating sacked staff. Rights  Defend the right to protest. No to the victimisation of student protesters. For the right to organise in every school, college and campus.  No to ‘kettling’ and police violence on demonstrations.  No to racism, sexism, homophobia and all other forms of discrimination.  Fight the far-right racist BNP and EDL. Jobs, homes and services- not racism. Build mass campaigns to defend communities.  No platform for fascists in education.  Rape is never the victim’s fault. For a mass campaign against sexism.  No to reactionary attacks on women’s rights.  Defend and extend abortion rights.  No to the three main bosses’ parties. For a new mass workers’ party that fights in the interests of ordinary people. For International Solidarity and Socialism  For solidarity between working class and young people across the world.  Solidarity with the Arab Spring – No to western intervention – it is on behalf of big business and capitalism.  No to war and imperialist intervention. For the Immediate withdrawal of all foreign troops from Afghanistan and Iraq.  End the siege of Gaza.  No to Trident nuclear missile replacement  Support the Sri Lanka Tamil Solidarity campaign – for the right of all people to self-determination.  No to environmental destruction. For a sustainable democratic socialist plan of production that won’t destroy the planet.  No to capitalism. For a socialist world, where the big monopolies are taken into public ownership, the economy is democratically planned and resources are used to meet the needs of all humanity. A campaign for students must start here. As terms are drawing to a close exams are being taken work must start now for action in the autumn to defend education and to fight for free education for the many not just the few.

Students back on the streets this Wednesday, join the demo against fees and cuts

This Wednesday the 21st of November will see the return to struggle on a mass scale by thousands of students on the streets of London for the first time since 2010. The monstrous demonstration of 2010 still lives in the memories of many students and the government too. The NUS who have called this demonstration against their will are being forced to organise this due to mass pressure from below. Shamefully we suspect many NUS officers will be doing very little and have been doing really little in organising for this demonstration this week. So it will be left to groups such as socialist students who have had a big upsurge in recruitment and taking up of our ideas on campuses up and down the land this term already. Just like in 2010 much of the organising for the demonstration will be on the ground carried out by rank-and-file students many of which may be looking at socialist students and discussing with us our ideas. Unlike the NUS we are fully opposed to all cuts and all fees. We stand for a free fully funded education for students. An end to cuts in higher education and further education. In the winter of 2010, by the skin of their teeth, Cameron, Clegg and their rich mates managed to weather the storm of student protest, college walkouts and university occupations and forced through the most draconian raft of education 'reforms' ever enacted in Britain. These 'improvements' included the tripling of tuition fees from an already unaffordable £3,000 to a sky-high £9,000, the removal of vital EMA for college students, and the slashing of education budgets by up to 80% in some departments. The face of our education has visibly changed - university applications have already fallen by 15% in my native Sheffield. Entire groups of friends who were at Sheffield's colleges now languish on the dole, unable to afford to go to university and unable to get jobs. The neoliberal slash-and-burn of our education has had chilling effects. But though the student movement was set back by the passing of these vicious assaults on working class people's right to education, we're still here and we certainly haven't forgotten. The 50,000-strong demonstration in November 2010, the storming of Millbank Tower and the subsequent mass student uprising against the Tories still loom large in the minds of students. This year, the 'Class of 2010' comes of age - some of the students who walked out of their colleges, who took part in the biggest demonstration of college students ever, are now at university, forced to pay £9,000 a year. The need to kick out this shambolic government is becoming clear. The National Union of Students demonstration 'Educate, Employ, Empower', on 21 November, could open the floodgates to this simmering anger. This tide can be a storm surge, made unstoppable and irresistible by Socialist Students' ever-present slogan: 'students and workers - unite and fight!' Only the union between the dynamism and energy of the students with the industrial muscle of the organised working class can lead to success. The task is clear - taking forward the demands of Socialist Students beyond this demonstration and into the new year: free education, no budget cuts, fair pay for teaching and support staff, and to lend all support possible to workers in the coming struggles. We'll kick out this shower of posh boys and we'll fight for a socialist future.

Why socialist students is an important component of fighting austerity

I have been really encouraged by the positive reports of the socialist student’s societies being set up and refounded across the UK. As a member of the socialist party I feel we haven’t paid nearly enough attention to student politics in the past. All that is starting to change though and I’m really pleased to hear such positive moves from new comrades coming on board and long standing ones paying more attention to such work. It’s no wonder we are finding a really strong support for our ideas on campus’s up and down the lands. I’m pretty sure we could have had a bigger student activist section of our party if we’d done the ground work in the previous decade just gone. Sadly work has been mainly focused on trade union battles, electoral challenges and the anti war movement. Student work and youth work more generally is a key component of any revolutionary party and I am glad to see the socialist party now taking this aspect of our work far more seriously than possibly in the past. Not belittling comrade’s work but it seems to now be stepping up a gear at long last. A concerted effort to reach out for those disenfranchised students who are facing the new £9,000 tuition fees for the first time and the rising cots of student living will create a groundswell of anger which we can match with our key demands we have as a party and societies up and down the land. Students need a voice since the lib dems who promised not to raise tuition fees broke their promises so catastrophically students have been looking for an alternative ever since. We as socialists should be looking to bridge that gap in consciousness and to linking up struggles including linking to the workers movement including joining the October 20th TUC demonstration in London and helping students join calls for a 24 hour general strike popularised by the National Shops Stewards network who lobbied the TUC on the 9th of September in Brighton. We are entering if we haven’t already a explosive period of class struggle which students who first showed us the way back in 2010 can play a key role in the struggle. We have had a good reception on freshers stalls in universities across the UK. At well-attended meetings we have discussed topics ranging from economics and theory to how we can take the lead in campaigns across campus such as Rape Is No Joke and the TUC demo on 20 October. Recently two Spanish members volunteered to lead a discussion on the situation in Spain laying the foundations for Socialist Students to launch a solidarity campaign for young people across Europe fighting back against government austerity. It is always key to link our struggles in this country to those around the globe Socialist students meetings where international topics have been discussed including the successful Quebec students strike of earlier this year and the huge battle of the South African miners will inspire many. Having an internationalist theme keeps our struggles linked to the wider battle to change the world to end capitalism and bring about a democratic socialist society which will benefit all not just the 1%. Clearly we will be facing many difficult questions by new attendees on stalls and socialist student meetings which are why the party and the youth department must support socialist students and new societies in particular to feel supported and linked in to the wider movement and the party. Most of all we must be starting to gear students and new recruits towards the 21st November NUS national day of action and mobilising as many students as we can. Contacting local Student unions and student bodies to gain support and transport is a must. Socialist students will be doing all it can to make the turnout for that day as big and as militant as possible. With socialist demands at the front of any action. Clearly the student movements leadership is still not up to leading a serious fight back against fees and cuts to education and youth services we must also while fighting our own local campus issues link this with the need to transform the leadership of the student movement with fighting left leaders who are prepared to take the battle on and win. Students makeup a big size of people in this country they must not be ignored their anger must be channelled in a constructive way into linking with the labour movement in removing capitalism the root of all exploitation from society once and for all.

The potential for Socialist Students

The socialist party has had various student organisations and even back to our militant days we were always heavily involved in the Labour Party young Socialists. With the success of youth Fight for jobs which is still only a few years old itself Socialist Students is our party’s latest attempt to gain a voice for students on university and college campuses up and down the country. I’m excited about this prospect with Hertfordshire University set to have its new society set up for the new academic year. There are already successful socialist students societies set up and functioning across the country you may wish to check some of them and our website out at http://socialiststudents.org.uk/wp/ the potential for recruits and the spread of socialist ideas is vast in today’s world young people especially are out there newly radicalised looking for answers to why they are having to pay huge fees while the most wealthy in society walk away with golden goodbyes whilst being able to bring the world economy to its knees. We aim to answer your questions and allow you to have a voice on campus and beyond. To join the fight to change society for the 99%. Student’s politics I’ve been told is a messy affair with lots of bitching and infighting within the scene but as Socialist students we are not interested in the sectarian nature of what is thought of as student politics. We’re here to provide a voice, an arena for discussion and to get students organised in what is one of the most difficult times for students ever. With the tripling of tuition fees and the cutting of EMA there is plenty of reasons for students to be angry and want to hit back. We advocate a constructive fight back putting forward an alternative of free education and support for all students whatever background you are from. What We Stand For Education  Abolish tuition fees. Write off student debt.  Restore EMA. Campaign for full living grants to cover the living costs of all students in post-16 education – including those at university.  No to higher and further education funding cuts. Defend every course, job and service.  No to academies and Free Schools.  For exam boards and all other privatised services to be taken back into public ownership – no repeat of this year’s exam mistakes fiasco!  Stop the marketisation and privatisation of universities in Britain. No to the government’s white paper and a two-tier Higher Education system. No university should be allowed to go to the wall!  Lift the cap on places and publicly fund the expansion of high quality higher education.  Build local anti-cuts campaigns and ‘Youth Fight for Education’ groups in every school, college and university, linked on both a regional and a national level.  Support action taken by education workers to defend their conditions and our education –their fight is our fight.  For the transformation of Students’ Unions into fighting organisations, with bottom-up democratic structures.  For a fighting NUS.  For education that is fully funded, publicly owned, democratically run and universally free at all levels – a socialist education system. Work and Welfare  Support the Youth Fight for Jobs campaign.  No to mass youth unemployment- for a decent job for all.  No to the government’s slave labour ‘workfare’ schemes. For decent training opportunities and apprenticeships for young people which pay at least the minimum wage, with a guaranteed job at the end.  No job losses in the public or private sector. When private bosses claim they can’t afford to maintain jobs, we say open the books. Let us see where the money has gone.  For nationalisation of companies threatening closure, under democratic control with compensation given on the basis of proven need.  Fight for a minimum wage of at least £8 an hour as a step towards a living wage.  No cuts to housing or other benefits.  End lower benefit rates for young people – for the right to Job Seekers Allowance at 16.  No to ‘workfare’ and slave labour internships. For decent jobs paid at least a minimum wage of £8 an hour.  Support the National Shop Stewards’ Network anti-cuts campaign which fights all cuts to jobs and services  The immediate re-opening of all youth services that have been closed, including reinstating sacked staff. Rights  Defend the right to protest. No to the victimisation of student protesters. For the right to organise in every school, college and campus.  No to ‘kettling’ and police violence on demonstrations.  No to racism, sexism, homophobia and all other forms of discrimination.  Fight the far-right racist BNP and EDL. Jobs, homes and services- not racism. Build mass campaigns to defend communities.  No platform for fascists in education.  Rape is never the victim’s fault. For a mass campaign against sexism.  No to reactionary attacks on women’s rights.  Defend and extend abortion rights.  No to the three main bosses’ parties. For a new mass workers’ party that fights in the interests of ordinary people. For International Solidarity and Socialism  For solidarity between working class and young people across the world.  Solidarity with the Arab Spring – No to western intervention – it is on behalf of big business and capitalism.  No to war and imperialist intervention. For the Immediate withdrawal of all foreign troops from Afghanistan and Iraq.  End the siege of Gaza.  No to Trident nuclear missile replacement  Support the Sri Lanka Tamil Solidarity campaign – for the right of all people to self-determination.  No to environmental destruction. For a sustainable democratic socialist plan of production that won’t destroy the planet.  No to capitalism. For a socialist world, where the big monopolies are taken into public ownership, the economy is democratically planned and resources are used to meet the needs of all humanity.

Solidarity with students walking out today fighting fees and cuts

Today is the long awaited walk out of students in colleges, schools and universities across the country. Announced by the NUS but poorly organised by the layers of bureaucracy of course.
I wanted to put up a message sending my solidarity and thoughts with all students walking out and taking action today. Whether you are walking out of classes, marching to a city/town centre or engaging in other forms of protests occupations etc.
In Harlow the socialist party went down to the local college earlier this morning to hand out leaflets on the day and our material offering an alternative. Youth fight for jobs and education fight for a return of EMA end to cuts and fees and free education for all as a right.

We don’t expect today to be a victory or a huge success due to the failure of the NUS to properly build for the day but socialist students and other comrades from the socialist party will be doing all they can to assist and lend support to students wishing to take action to defend education.

The campaign needs to be stepped up with further action needing to be called very soon the student movement needs that spark again and this day of action could be it if militant layers of students take control of the movement and push for further action.

Good luck to all those taking action today. Although I can’t be with you in person due to work commitments I’ll be there in solidarity with you all.

Building for march the 14th, a student week of action aginst fees and cuts

As we creep towards march the 14th it is likely we will face a difficult situation in terms of building for this week of action. The NUS has called a national week of action and so far i have heard very little on plans and actions for the week.

As socialist students we feel we can lend a hand here. Where no action is planned by your student union at your college, school or university we’d like to be on hand to help with building and lending support and solidarity to the walk out.

NUS is organising a parliamentary lobby on 7 March and a ‘week of action’ from 12-16 of March. The centrepiece of the student action should be the national walk-out that has been announced. Liam Byrne, NUS president, has called for this to take place this term. This development should be welcomed by all students who want to campaign against the whole range of attacks currently underway on our campuses.
Clearly, the right wing NUS leadership has been forced to take this action by pressure from below. It cannot be forgotten last term’s two most successful protests aimed at students and youth, the Jarrow March for Jobs and the student demo on 9 November, were organised outside of NUS structures.

NUS should be mobilising to support teachers and lecturers in their battle to defend pensions. When these workers next take strike action NUS should mobilise student solidarity on the picket lines and rallies, calling on all students to join the strike. While very important, student action alone will not be enough to stop the higher education slaughter. Unity with workers, particularly when they strike, is key. Workers and students unite and fight!
The walkout is less than two weeks away. However, so far, the NUS have failed to build for a day of mass action across the country.
Socialist Students members should contact student union officers to find out what the union is planning – if anything – and how they intend to build for it.
Where a student union refuses to build for the walkout, then Socialist Students could put an emergency motion to the student union council to mandate the officers to take action.
But this shouldn’t be a substitute for building for the walkout ourselves. Mass postering and leafleting around campus can help raise the profile of the strike.
Socialist Students members could organise for their own course-mates to take part in the walkout. This could act as an example for other students to follow.
Socialist Students groups could also call meetings open to all students and groups who are willing to organise action. These ‘action committees’ could then help organise the strike as well as any protests and rallies.
Socialist Students is calling for the student strike to be spread to colleges and schools. In some towns, central meeting points for demonstrations could help link up university students with school and college students for a march. In other areas, on-campus protests might be the best option.
Liam Burns, NUS president, has said: “…let’s clear out the lecture theatres, the seminar rooms, the ITC suites and the libraries and demonstrate clearly that without students, universities are just empty buildings. Let’s work hard together to show that students care and make the national walkout count.”
These are fine words, but words alone are not enough. We need democratic, fighting student unions to defend education. We say no to cuts, fees and privatisation – bring back EMA. Strike back on 14 March!
Then, for 28 March, plan for coordinating follow up action with lecturers as they take action alongside teachers and civil servants in defence of pensions.

Socialist party youth organise the fightback

This weekend is the annual get together of the youth section of the socialist party of England and Wales. I sadly cant make this meeting but know many comrades who will be there and have no doubt will be well represented from all parts of the working class.

i am gutted i cant make this actually as last year this was the meeting that decided that the young comrades would reanact the Jarrow march 70 years on from the original march. What a fantastic march and demonstrations up and down the country linking up with workers in struggle and other struggles going on that was. I remember meeting the marchers and the young comrades on that march when they came to Hertfordshire.

A fantastic idea and a great way for youth fight for jobs to get off the ground. A new organisation fighting for a better world for young people focusing on jobs for young people with branch's into education and student life too.

The weekend in London of the youth meeting will be a chance for all young people who feel that the current system of 9 k fees, no EMA and increased marketisation of our education system with a record 1.2 million young people out of work and not in training. This is a major crisis not just for young people but for theirs and our futures. As young people are the future it is about time young people found their voice and got organised.

The socialist party and socialist students have been on the ball right from the word go they recognise that young people are part of the working class and are like them, being made to pay for a crisis not of their making.

They realise no party no longer speaks for them in Westminster with the Lib Dems going back on their promises to stand for free education for all by signing up for trebbled tuitain fees and over seeing the scrapping of the EMA grant. They cant clearly be trusted. Neither can the Labour party who introduced tuitain fees in the first place and have already said they'd have doubled tuitian fees if they were in power. that too is not good enough. Dont even let us mention the tories and their plans doesnt bear mentioning.

But young people are as much a part of this fightback as the public and private sector workers. With a proposed walk out in the next month or so called by the NUS it is socialist students and our young comrades who will be at the front of leading walk outs and linking up battles in the public sector with workers fighting for a fair pension for all.

With March 28 looking like a new date for co-ordinated strike action in the public sector it is essential any student/youth struggles planned must be co-ordinated along with this day to create the biggest wave of impact possible. With teachers in the NUT and UCU possibly walking out on March 28th imagine the wave of action of all of their students walking out alongside their teachers and lectuers what solidarity that would give to all involved and send a strong message to this government that we have not gone away and are still prepared to fight.

As i say i am sad i cant make this weekends youth meeting but eagerly await news and updates on the outcome of our activities for this year and as and where we can interveen in struggles and be on the picket lines and demonstrations having a impact with our material offering an alternative to this mad twisted rotten capitalist system of greed and exploitation.