Yesterday’s amazing demonstration in central London was followed by a retreat on the part of the UCU leadership and a rejection of the rotten deal that had been negotiated. Below is a report of that demonstration by Charlotte from Goldsmiths, from which you get a sense of the determination and anger that there was on the demo. Given that, it’s not surprising that the deal was rejected.
There was a really great turn out for the protest, I’d say there were at least a couple of hundred people. The crowd was full of energy when it came to chanting and cheering. We heard from a good number of delegates who were there to go and vote on the proposal. They were all hugely in favour of rejecting the proposal and showed that all across the country people are willing to keep fighting until an agreement of maintaining the status quo is achieved. One speaker who stood out for me was from Goldsmiths who talked about a meeting that will be held at the university for all who can come to discuss the best moves for everyone to ensure we win this strike. I think this represents just how determined everyone is to continue and the unity of all the universities involved.
There were messages coming in saying that we could be heard by the delegates from inside the building which certainly kept everyone’s morale high.
After the main protest outside the UCU building it was decided that we would march to the UUK headquarters. That went really well. There was roughly 50 people who decided to participate. The crowd was a little less loud then it was at the protest but there was still quite a lot of chanting and we even had a few buses and vans beep their horns in support of us which was great. When we arrived at headquarters there was some chanting for a few minutes but after that the crowd dispersed very quickly.
by Charlotte Weston, Goldsmiths University
