student scabs

[KeyboardJockey]

I get the feeling that some posters on this thread subscribe to the stereotypical view that all students are "lazy, soap-dodgers".

I would prefer that students were lazy soap dodgers rather than the corporate ladder climbers that they appear to be trained and moulded into being.

While one should be concerned about s/s being used as scab labour, I have seen some pretty horrendous generalisations about HE and students on this thread. This is what I have come to expect from those persons who have never been to uni and who tend suffer from a form of inverse snobbery as a result.

I wish I had gone to a uni.

 

[poster342002]

Part of the problem is the union officials are by the nature of the work and the environments they move in (some of them seem to spend more time attending conferences and meetings than actually talking to workers they are supposed to be representing) are divorced from the workplace environment.

Yes, even the best of them are mostly on 100% facility time in the union room as opposed to holding a normal post at the coalface. Combine this with membership of any number of trot parties where they only meet similar people, all telling each other what they want to hear, and you start to see how they've got themselves into this mess and why they cannot see what's actually going on.

 

[poster342002]

What the fools and fantasists who trot this quote [about Jack London] out fail to comprehend is that item was written in the 19th Century and now has no relevance to the world of work today.

I agree. The left has not adapted to the changing and worsening circumstances or come up with any new strategy to counter this - apart form sticking their fingers in their ears and going "la la la - can't hear you!".

 

[KeyboardJockey]

A agree. The left has not adapted to the changing and worsening circumstances or come up with any new strategy to counter this - apart form sticking their fingers in their ears and going "la la la - can't hear you!".

The thing is you have to persuade peacefully and give good reasons why a strike should be supported and this is not happening.

The closed shop isn't the answer either.

To add: I've recently seen an example of head in the sandism with a close friend who is seeing the tories decimate the borough she is working in and not consulting with the unions over cuts which was the normal policy under previous labour lib dem administrations. The union just keep expecting the council to behave as they normally would and use tactics that are being ignored by the council. The union even told staff who were threatened with losing their jobs in the restructuring that they were not to apply for jobs in the new structure as a protest. What screaming arrogance on the part of the union. Run a failed policy and then expect the ordianry workers to cut their own throats to back it up.

 

[poster342002]

The thing is you have to persuade peacefully and give good reasons why a strike should be supported

I really, really think some workplaces are totally beyond persuading. When you get whole workforces that delight in cheering on attacks on their own conditons and revel in corporate arselicking (even when it's evidently not in their interests to do so), there's nothing you can really do.

I give up. Stokholme Syndrome totally prevails in most wrokpalces I've ever seen.

 

[poster342002]

I've recently seen an example of head in the sandism with a close friend who is seeing the tories decimate the borough she is working in and not consulting with the unions over cuts which was the normal policy under previous labour lib dem administrations. The union just keep expecting the council to behave as they normally would and use tactics that are being ignored by the council. The union even told staff who were threatened with losing their jobs in the restructuring that they were not to apply for jobs in the new structure as a protest. What screaming arrogance on the part of the union. Run a failed policy and then expect the ordianry workers to cut their own throats to back it up.

Some union bods really do remind me of the crassly inept officers of WW1 and the battle of the somme.

 

[_angel_]

Heh, nobody likes students! Yes there is a stereotype of students - they just go to Uni to spend three years getting pissed and partying whilst doing no proper work at Uni. I've been to two Unis and I live in Headingley (where all the students in Leeds live) and there are a hell of a lot that fit that category I can tell you! And everyone gets annoyed by students but I think the amount of "student tossers" is far far less than the amount of pefectly "normal" students who are fine and bother no-one.

As far as this thread goes, and as far as how much students are interested (let alone take part in) politics, then I can honestly say that the amount of students that take an interest in politics is miniscule. I don't think the students that broke the picket lines in Liverpool either knew what the consequences of their actions are, or they probably don't care as it's a bit of extra and badly-needed cash for a short amount of work.

Of course, there are politically active students, but the 60s/70s image of left-wing active students simply does not exist any more. The vast majority of them sadly, imo, only care about going out and generally being "cool"

It does seem like that doesn't it?

 

[editor]

When I was a student in the late nineties, trying to get classmates to go any kind of political march was trying to like herd wild cats into a mouse hole after imbibing a faceful of acid.

 

[_angel_]

I went on marches in the nineties but was one of the minority.


embarrassing

 

[Dillinger4]

I only know of about 2-3 people in this entire university that gets involved in any kind of proper politics.

 

[London Boy]

Why do or should students have to be political at all?

At the end of the day, universities are simply a place to get a degree and recieve an education, why all this fuss about apolitical students, who cares.

 

[audiotech]

A lot of the people who worked in Universities in Canteens and on Reception always hated students as so many of them treated them like shit.

After a 4 year stint working in a university, I can definitely say it was a two way street.

 

[audiotech]

Anyway, students today are slightly more revolting than they were in the 80's.

revolting politically that is

 

[KeyboardJockey]

After a 4 year stint working in a university, I can definitely say it was a two way street.

Agree as in all walks of life.

 

[treelover]

usually I would agree with you, but as always there are big exceptions

student protest forces vice-chancellor concessions

z | 15.10.2007 21:33 | Education | Liverpool | Manchester
Manchester University student union staged a protest under the slogan "education not profits" today. 100 students followed the call and converged on the university's 3rd foundation ceremony headlined by VC Alan Gilbert. After scuffles with security guards, some 25 students broke into the conference centre forcing Gilbert to agree to a public debate.

VC Gilbert, ousted from Melbourne after privatising the university there, has come under increased pressure from students and staff at Manchester University. Allegations of mismanagement and lobbying for higher fees have made him unpopular. Since his take-over in 2004, students have complained of fewer contact hours, the introduction of top-up fees, the charging of international fees for asylum seekers, larger tutorials and increased campus security measures that separate academic staff from students. Gilbert oversaw the merger of two Manchester universities into the new University of Manchester and claims that this has left him with a deficit. At the same time, he has invested into the biggest campus development in Britain with £650m spend on new (and often disfunctional) infrastructure.

Those concerns brought 100 students out today, initially chanting slogans for free eduction outside the building where the ceremony was held. When it became clear that only about 6 or 7 security guards where dealing with the protest, first attempts where made to enter the building. Scuffles broke out as students prevented ceremony attendees to enter.

After an hour, two students had sneeked into the building and alerted the demonstration by mobile phone. The protesters walked around the building, dismantling harris fencing and entering through the back entrance as the two inside opened the emergency exit in the right moment. About 25 made it inside before the others were prevented by security to follow.

Inside they challenged Alan Gilbert to a public debate. He had to agree in the end, after students refused to leave the ceremony hall, while outside the rest of the protest staged a sit-in. After a long stand-off, Gilbert eventually came out to the students and announced in front of cameras that he would attend a two-hour public debate with representatives from the student's union about free eduction.

The coming weeks will show if he keeps his promise and what the student response will be.

 

[treelover]

Perhaps what we should remember is that youth/student movements are often spontaneous and volatile, you never know when something may happen, 68?

 

[KeyboardJockey]

Perhaps what we should remember is that youth/student movements are often spontaneous and volatile, you never know when something may happen, 68?

I wonder what society would have been like if the 68 generation had won more from the govts. We have seen the benefits of their dissent in so far as we have had a sexual liberation because some hairy fucker manned a baracade I now have freedoms that previous generatons would not have had. I think the hard leftism as expoused by some of the protesters would have been just as disaterous as the rampant capitalism we are under now. But maybe other forces more democratic but dynamic and organised forces could have grown out of it and restrained and challenged that dreary pattern that revolutions have of turning into autrocracies and dictatorships.

It raises so many questions even 40 odd years on.

 

[treelover]

I think many of the people involved in the DDR uprisings in 1989, etc were effectively 68'ers, a peoples movement which sadly was swept away by nationalist conservative forces, the CDU...

 

[Nemo]

At the end of the day, universities are simply a place to get a degree and recieve an education, why all this fuss about apolitical students, who cares.

They're also places where you go to grow as a person, and political awareness is part of that; how can you claim to be an educated and rounded person if you haven't thought more about your place in the world than how many £10,000s your degree is going to be worth in the workplace?

 

[TheDave]

I really must have missed some cultural event before my birth but why are students given so much stick? Or is it like taking the piss out of ginger people just an acceptable form of discrimination?

 

[Prince Rhyus]

I really must have missed some cultural event before my birth but why are students given so much stick? Or is it like taking the piss out of ginger people just an acceptable form of discrimination?

I think student culture is rapidly changing as a result of fees and the financial situation that students and graduates find themselves in. I don't think that political parties of all persuasions have grappled with this.

On one side you'll have those who see students as drunken layabouts rolling in the mud having not showered for a year, and thus deserving of their situation. But as more people go through uni under the new "regime" and as students become more aware of "value for money" of their courses, this may change as universities (and the government) struggle to adapt to the genie unleashed.

The problem at the moment is that people don't necessarily see the links between the posties strike and the wider picture of, for example post office closures and predatory firms picking off what IMO should be a regulated state monopoly because the market cannot efficiently deliver such an efficient and effective service irrespective of where one lives. (Rural areas will be hit by this hardest in the long run.)

Part of the problem is that the culture is still too much around "me me me" rather than having any sense of community and responsibility. Because there is little culture of co-operation between the NUS and other trade unions, and little culture of solidarity, students are going to look at the bottom line and do what they can to mitigate for the financial hit that they are taking while they study.

 

[october_lost]

I really must have missed some cultural event before my birth but why are students given so much stick? Or is it like taking the piss out of ginger people just an acceptable form of discrimination?

Did you read the start of the thread

 

[Lo Siento.]

lot of bollocks excuses on this thread, btw. I don't care where you're brought up, or what your class-consciousness is. When a load of managers have to secretly bus you past 700 people picketing at their workplace, when they give you extra money for it, you know that you're fucking someone over. And if you don't give a shit, it's not because you haven't been exposed to some wider culture of solidarity, it's because you're a cunt - someone who couldn't give a shit about your fellow human beings, because you want the money, so you're going to do the job. That's not anything to do with culture, that's to do with being a selfish scumbag.

(as for the crap about sacrifices - (a) they're what? a month into term? what happened to their loans? (b) you can tell agencies you don't want to do any given job, that's just about the only advantage of being a temp (c) there's shitloads of casual/temp work you can do that isn't scabbing)

Like I said. These kids saw a chance to make easy money at other people's expense, and took it. Let's not have the "aw, poor little students" bollocks.

 

[dennisr]

I give up.

did to ever start then?

change the record to something you actually know a little bit about

 

[nino_savatte]

Well, it was all very different in the 80's; a lot of students were very political and as I pointed out earlier, it was because of this politicisation of students, that Thatcher pressed ahead with plans to change things in HE. One proposal included making membership of the NUS voluntary. When the ERA of 1989 came into force, all educational institutions from FE to HE had to compete for "bums on seats"; the grants disappeared and were replaced with loans. Students increasingly found themselves with larger debts at the end of university and some were even forced into the sex industry to make ends meet.

 

[_angel_]

I got a grant 91-94. Was I the only one??

 

[marty21]

i got a grant in 94/5, fairly good one as well, about £4000 iirc, it was a mature students grant, which i think they phased out soon after

 

[poster342002]

in rsponse to my earlier "I give up"

did to ever start then?

Yes - I've spent nigh-on 20 years banging my head on a political wall. That wall is still standing, utterly undamaged, while my head now hurts like fuck. I can only draw my own conclusions ...

 

[_angel_]

i got a grant in 94/5, fairly good one as well, about £4000 iirc, it was a mature students grant, which i think they phased out soon after

kinell! I got about £1600 per year....!!!

 

[poster342002]

The union just keep expecting the council to behave as they normally would and use tactics that are being ignored by the council.

And here's another thing: the left as a whole has not come up with any strategy to counter the (now standard) "stonewall and ignore" tactic used by management and the powers-that-be at large in any kind of dispute. Letters from unions go unreplied, strikes just ignored etc etc and the movement just carries on beeliving that the managemet/govt "will have to" acknowledge them at some point (well, guess what? They don't "have" to do anything of the sort as there's no way to make them). The left go on saying this right up to the point the case is finally and utterly lost and the management get what they want.