Students have been occupying parts of the University of Leeds since Monday, May 23. The 'Occupy Leeds Uni' group set up in a meeting room on level 13 of the building near the executive offices of the Marjorie and Arnold Ziff building.
University and College Union (UCU) members in Leeds and across the country have been striking following a dispute over pension cuts and staff being overworked. The demonstrations come following the University's response, saying staff who participated in the boycott would be withheld pay
Earlier today (Friday, May 27), the group occupied the finance offices of the university and the facilities of the directorate. One of the activists spoke to LeedsLive about their plans going forward, demanding better treatment of staff and students.
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They said: “We are not going to go quietly into the night.
“We want to communicate the message that we are the uni, not the management, they seem determined to ignore us, they’ve been ignoring the staff for 4 years.
“This is not an issue that is going to go away, because ultimately it is the students and staff that make up the uni.
“One of the main issues is the breakdown of communication between management and staff and we are really pushing to change that. It's been quite shocking to hear about is how management hasn't spoken to Unison. It shows that they believe they can ignore these people.”
The group claim the university has been ignoring the staff and Unison groups for years, and even made claims that staff were being bullied.
“As a university that is supposedly championing itself on diversity and inclusion, we should be better than ignoring our staff. We came into this to stop the 100% paycuts that staff were being threatened with, which is abhorrent and a choice of the Uni.
“When speaking to the vice-chancellor this wasn’t something that came from wanting to build trust or supporting students. We stand by staff and when we are hearing there are staff suffering from extreme working conditions.”
“We want a management that stands for integrity.", they added.
The University of Leeds has responded by locking buildings across campus, only allowing those with fob access into the building.
Supporters have gathered at daily rallies around the Wavy Bacon statue all week. Staff and students will gather again at 5pm on Friday evening.
Do you support the students occupying the building? Let us know in the comments.
James, a first year student who has occupied the Facilities Directorate, said: “We’ve spoken to the Head of Operations and an investment manager, and the responses were gutting, but exactly as you’d expect in an institution failing its staff and students. They were completely indifferent and told us they had no position on staff working conditions. To have no position on Unison staff being forced to work two jobs and use food banks is abhorrent! This inhuman lack of empathy is what we are fighting against.”
A University spokesperson said: “It is deeply regrettable that our community is one of only 20 from about 150 institutions nationally that is subject to this marking and assessment boycott.
“The University remains open to finding a resolution to this current period of industrial action, and many local actions are already underway in relation to the issues involved, including reducing the use of fixed-term contracts, reviewing our workload principles and modelling, and initiatives around equity, diversity and inclusion.
“Senior management and local UCU branch members had a positive discussion at a scheduled meeting earlier this week, and we hope to continue talks in the coming days. In the meantime, our priorities remain to protect the interests of students - including minimising any disruption to them, retaining the cohesion of our community and protecting the standard of Leeds degrees.”
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