UCU Greylists London Met

UCU grey lists London Met. Below is the letter from Sally Hunt explaining the action.

Dear colleague,

As you will know, I seldom email you directly and only do so when I feel that a situation is extremely important to our union. As such, it is with regret that I write to you today to formally notify you of the greylisting of London Metropolitan University (LMU). Those of you who have been in the union since its inception or were in one of the predecessor unions, AUT or NATFHE, will be aware that this is the most serious sanction available to us and this will be the first time in UCU's history when greylisting has been formally implemented rather then threatened (such as at Keele University and Nottingham Trent University).

As of today, 1 September, UCU will be asking colleagues across the country, other trade unions, labour movement organisations and the international academic community to support our members at the university in any way possible, including:

* non-attendance, speaking at or organising academic or other conferences at LMU
* not applying for any advertised jobs at LMU
* not giving lectures at LMU
* not accepting positions as visiting professors or researchers at LMU
* not writing for any academic journal which is edited at or produced by LMU
* not taking up new contracts as external examiners for taught courses

If you are able to support in this way, please email: jstephens@ucu.org.uk

Please could I also ask that you, as a matter of urgency, write to the
vice-chancellor at LMU, Alfred Morris (Alfred.Morris@londonmet.ac.uk ) to:

* express your concern
* state that that you will not take part in any collaboration with LMU for the duration of greylisting
* call on the university to honour UCU's redundancy avoidance procedure
* request that the findings of the independent enquiry currently being conducted by Deloitte Touche are made public and are acted upon
* call for an urgent internal review of LM management following the reports of
both HEFCE and Deloitte Touche

Please copy any correspondence to: jstephens@ucu.org.uk

All UCU members are also asked to consider the following questions and respond as soon as possible to jstephens@ucu.org.uk in order that we support our colleagues and students at London Metropolitan as effectively as possible.

* Are you involved in collaborative research activity with LMU?
* Are you aware of any collaboration between LMU and other HE/FE institutions, including international?
* Are you planning to attend any conferences and/or are you booked as an external speaker/guest lecture?
* Are you aware of any high profile speakers or events being planned at LMU?
* Are you aware or involved in any other collaborative relationships - such as with business?
* Have you been approached to be an external examiner at LMU?

Background to the dispute:

As I am sure you will by now be aware, toward the end of last year, LMU was hit by a £15 million reduction in recurring grant and repayment demands totalling more than £36 million by HEFCE following submissions of incorrect student completion records. The university responded by stating that they intended to cut 550 posts. Despite our best efforts over the last nine months to attempt to persuade the university to enter into formal negotiations to reach a resolution, and a vigorous, nationally and regionally supported branch campaign, including industrial action, the university is forging ahead with the planned compulsory redundancies – the first 50 FTEs of which are imminent.

The situation at London Metropolitan University is unprecedented. The vice-chancellor, Brian Roper resigned in March and a special report into HEFCE's role in the crisis at LMU was published last month (available here). After months of public pressure from the academic community, UCU and our sister unions, Deloitte Touche have been commissioned to undertake an independent inquiry into the situation at London Met and UCU will be contributing to this inquiry.

UCU's position:

We believe that this reinforces the dire need for a fresh start for London Metropolitan. The staff and the students deserve a new leadership and new, open and productive industrial relations. Yet, in spite of our calls for a suspension of their proposals until after the independent reports have been made public, the management appears dogmatically committed to press on with its plans to make 550 redundancies of which many, we fear, will be compulsory.

I believe that we cannot stand back and allow this university to be destroyed. We cannot stand by and allow hundreds of staff and students pay the price for a catastrophic failure of management and governance. As a national union, we must be able to say that it is unacceptable for staff to pay for mismanagement with their jobs and students to suffer huge detriment to their education and we must establish the principle that universities must be accountable for their actions.

UCU remains committed to a negotiated solution and we hope that management will back away from a course which we believe will threaten the long-term future of the university.

Many thanks,

Sally Hunt,
UCU General Secretary

Vestas, Thomas Cook, Ssangyong, Tanta Flax: A day of bosses brutality. Smash the state.

Today saw a number of key workers struggles attacked by the bosses. Many of you based in Britain and Ireland will have been following both the occupation of the Vestas wind turbine factory on the Isle of White and the occupations of two Thomas Cook shops in Dublin. Today both occupations came to an end.

This morning at 5am, following a High Court order yesterday, Gardai assaulted the Thomas Cook shop on Grafton street (see Socialist Worker Ireland for pics). Then at 11am, the judge on the Isle of Wight upheld Vestas call for an eviction notice of the Wind Turbine factory in Newport (though there is an ongoing occupation of the roof of the Cowes offices). It looks like that occupation might be ending soon.

Those are really significant attacks by the bosses on occupying workers, but they dont compare in brutality to the commando attack and brave resistance of the workers at the Ssangyong Car Factory in South Korea or the Security Forces attack on workers at the important Tanta Flax factory in Egypt.

Now all of these struggles are not at an end - the class struggle in Ireland is rising all the time as workers shake off their chains, Vestas is a campaign that will continue, Egypt's wave of radicalism has been through worse and the movement in South Korea is confident and disciplined.

But today is nevertheless an important day to reflect on the nature of the state, laws and the police. In all of these cases, the forces of the state have been used to attack workers engaged in 'economic' struggle. When workers make demands of the government for a greater share of wealth, the cry is that there isn't enough money, or we should tighten our belts, or - worse - that government can't intervene in the world of business. These sort of answers looked ever more ridiculous as more and more of our cash was given to bankers to bail them out. After that we had bail outs for car companies, forced mergers, the lot.

So workers rightly expected that some of this money would come their way - afterall bankers still earn huge bonuses and banks still make massive profits. So when shops like Waterford Glass, Prisme, Visteon, Vestas and Thomas Cook in the Ireland decide they're shutting down - despite all of them being profitable - workers there expected things to be done. When they weren't they occupied. Waterford Glass ended in victory, then Prisme and Visteon got hugely improved offers. The lesson: where workers fight, they win.

Now all this talk of fighting and winning has obviously worried the bosses. So Vestas and Thomas Cook have both used the courts to try and evict the workers occupying their own workplaces. In both cases (and in Ireland the High Court sat on a bank holiday) the courts backed up the bosses. In Dublin this was followed up by a huge police raid.

So what are the lessons we cna learn from this? We have to be clear that the institutions of capitalist society aren't neutral - they work for the bosses. When the banks need bailouts, they get them from the state, while at the same time plants like Vestas aren't nationalised and the dole is cut to a ridiculous level. The courts themselves uphold capitalis property laws - thats why it doesn't matter whether Judge White (who presided over todays hearing on Vestas) is a nice bloke - he has to find in favour of the company if he accepts that they have some sort of exclusive ownership of the plant (this isn't to apologise for judges, I'm just pointing out that its incidental that they are Telegraph reading Tory idiots). Laws and the Courts are merely a way of giving oppression a palatable surface.

And then we have the police - loyally carrying out the instructions from the ruling class institutions that have no legitimacy for us, they jump into action wherever they are in the world, in the interests of private property, capital and the bosses.

Today should be a lesson that in the class struggle, nothing and noone is neutral - you either stand for the emancipation of humanity or you stand with those forces who want to maintain their priveleged position. The police, the courts and the state have picked their side. We need to make sure workers pick ours.

Hong Kong protests

From Al Jazeera

Buried in this article is a little bit about government workers going on the protest as an organised group for the first time. If the protest is as big as the organisers are saying, then workers could gain in confidence. Hong Kong has more relaxed laws than the rest of China and that, combined with the economic crash could make it a spark for wider workers struggle in China. Especially if the 'three Nos' can't be upheld.

For more discussion on China, why not join us at Marxism 2009 this weekend?

Quick update on Honduras

It seems that eveything is still up for grabs in Honduras. The coupists had learnt from the mistakes of the Venezuelan ruling class in 2002 and have imposed a huge curfew and violently defended the presidential palace. There have been rival demonstrations in Tegucigalpa from the various sides and it looks likes the coupists have used enough repression to dominate the situation in Honduras, for the moment. Interestingly, though, the OAS has given Honduras and 72 hour deadline to restore Zelaya to power or be expelled from the group. Obama is backing the call (see the Angry Arab for some interesting analysis of Obama's actions) and it seems international condemnation of the coup is growing, with the new government not attracting recognition yet. Micheletti, the coup's chosen 'President', said that only an armed invasion would restore Zelaya, which is what Ecuador and Venezuela have hinted at. For more updates, see the ever useful Postcards from the Revolution blog.

East Coast mainline nationalised

From BBC News

Have just seen this that says the East Coast Mainline is being nationalised and the Government is setting up a state company to run the service. The renationalisation of the rail has always been one of the demands that have gone down best with people and we should seize on this to make it a reality. Plus, I have to travel virgin this weekend so if we act quick I might get a cheaper ticket to London for Marxism.