Wednesday 21 October saw the fourth Student-Staff Solidarity Assembly. The event was open to the public, and a number of local residents joined.
This marked the fourth week of strike action, with UCU members engaging in physical and digital pickets.
They demanded a stop to the cuts, democratisation of the university’s financial model (including implementing a Responsible Independent Advisory Group), and immediate resignations from Principal Peter Mathieson and Provost Professor Kim Graham, with their replacements elected by the staff and student body.
One of the speakers was Q Manivannan, MSP for Edinburgh and Lothian East, who discussed the “gagging” of staff members affected by cuts, and how the “university was built on the arts and humanities courses now being cut.”
Recently, MSP Manivannan submitted a motion to parliament on Reversing the Closure of Craft Course at Edinburgh College of Art.
A spokesperson for the Scottish Artist’s Union described this end of “training of high-skilled applied artists” — including ending the ECA textiles course which the Guardian University Guides ranks second best in the UK — as a form of “cultural vandalism.”
UNISON Branch Secretary Jonathan McBride discussed the results of their consultative ballot — in which an overwhelming majority voted for the union to engage in negotiations, with a key concern being no compulsory redundancies.
UNISON is the union for public service workers, with members that are non-teaching employees of the university. When asked if UNISON members would be joining the picket lines any time soon he said “it’s ongoing conversation” and reminded the group that “it takes ten weeks to get to pickets.”
One local resident, a wife of a striking UCU member described how “as a mother, if [I] didn’t have a job tomorrow, I would be devastated,” and emphasised the importance of “putting a face to the people” striking for their livelihoods.
The International Students Working Group discussed plans to escalate if the demands laid out in their open letter were not met, including encouraging their home universities to reconsider partnerships with the University of Edinburgh.
Attendees also received advice and encouragement from a “comrade straight from the barricades” via conference call, Alice Cohen-Mordadec, an organiser in l’Union Etudiante — the largest French Students’ Union — who has mobilised students in current militant protests advocating for educational reform.
Other groups speaking in solidarity were the Scottish Students society, Dundee Students against the cuts, Living Rent, and the IWGB games workers branch.
Image by Sophie Loiacano for The Student
