00:00Newcastle University's unionised academic staff and students picketed outside the Kingsgate
00:05building across from the Haymarket in protest over plans to slash £30m in university spending,
00:12including £20m on its wage bill. The wage cuts equate to around 300 full-time jobs.
00:18The cuts were announced following pay and promotion freezes enacted late last year after
00:22a decline in international students, which has hit universities across the country, creating
00:27a shortfall of £35m in the institution's treasury.
00:31Picker has also heard from the University and College Union General Secretary Joe Grady
00:36at Grey's Monument, alongside other guest speakers.
00:39Joe Grady said,
00:40This is not just a Newcastle issue. We've got branches in Dundee, Cardiff, Sheffield,
00:45Brunel and Durham either balloting or taking strike action over similar proposed job cuts
00:49over similar projected deficits.
00:51UK-wide, we know we've already had an announcement of over 5,000 jobs and potentially another
00:565,000 more. Yes, we are in Newcastle protesting these cuts, but this is a pattern seen across
01:02the UK.
01:04Everyone is furious that staff in higher education go above and beyond on a daily basis for students.
01:09The union boss also criticised Newcastle's university's plans to open a campus in India
01:14while proposing to cut budgets and staff.
01:17We spoke with students in Newcastle about their thoughts on these strikes.
01:21I mean, I'm fully in support of strike action personally, but I'm a bit biased in that I
01:26want to be a lecturer. So I'm seeing these job cuts happening and I'm thinking, that's
01:29my future. If I go into further education, I do my master's, I do my PhD and I become
01:33a lecturer. Well, the field is starting to cease to exist because the money isn't going
01:39to lecturers, they're getting rid of them, which means there's less teaching for postgrad
01:42students, less supervision. It obviously has the ripple impact because it's a 5% cut across
01:47all departments that's happening in Newcastle, which it's fine for the bigger departments.
01:51But for instance, the School of Philosophy, they already don't have many staff. So 5%
01:55is gutting the department. You know, philosophy will cease to exist if these cuts go through.
02:00I know I went to a meeting the other day and they were saying in geography, they've already
02:04lost like five or six members of staff. Well, students are paying £10,000 a year to study
02:10and they're losing members of staff. So they're losing teaching. The staff who remain are
02:14getting double, triple the workload. So of course I support the strikes because that's
02:18not fair. It's not fair on the people who are losing their jobs. And it's not fair on
02:22the students who are paying £10,000 to get a worse education. I know the universities
02:28have done nothing to mitigate the strike action. They say, you know, we want to make sure that
02:32you're not impacted by it, but they're not doing anything. Obviously, you can't stop
02:35the staff from striking, so the lectures aren't happening, so students aren't being taught.
02:39I think for what they want to achieve, I think it's a pretty, as a student, it doesn't really
02:46affect us too much. I think it's definitely worth it. It's only certain days a week. For
02:51example, you still want to have meetings with people, or you can't obviously go to
02:54lectures, but you can still have access to the teachers. It doesn't actually impact the
02:58studying too much.
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