[page 5]
Seven weeks ago a Working Party set up by the Kent University Authorities proposed to make 189 workers, most of them women.redundant and to increase food and residence prices by 10% in order to cover an increasing loss on catering facilities.
STUDENT/WORKER MASS MEETING TO FIGHT REDUNDANCIES.
After the appearance of the report, which had been produced without consultation with either the students, the workers, or their union representatives, in this case the National Union of Public Employees (N.U.P.E.) and the General and Municipal Workers Union (G.M.W.U.), a mass meeting of students, workers, and academics was held. This set up an action committee to fight the redundancies and price increases.
KENT UNIVERSITY CAMPAIGN AGAINST REDUNDANCIES At first the campaign followed a policy of pressure group politics, by attempting to exert outside pressure on the authorities by meeting with the Archbishop of Canterbury. the Shadow Education Deputy Minister, Moyle, and with Jo Grimmond. This form of activity soon proved ineffective, and only served to reduce the active struggle of both the students and workers. Gradually the unions began to allow their members to go to individual interviews about re-employment and when some of the redundancy notices began to be served people began to think that the fight was over. OCCUPATION However it became clear to some of us at the university that rather than the struggle being over it had not yet bezun. A bold initiative was needed to provide a focus for the fight. That initiative could only be taken by the students alone as the only body still willing to fight and who had not yet been really involved in the struggle, It was hoped that this demonstration of solidarity would bring the workers back into the campaign. It was clear that the only viable form of direct action that the students could take was an occupation. The decision to occupy was made at a crowded Extraordinary General Meeting of the Students Union on May 30th. As a result, the West Block of Corn wallis Building was occupied.
THE AUTHORITIES REACTION REBOUNDS The University Authorities retaliated by closing down all catering services. Naturally, this crude manoeuvre to divide domestic staff and the catering staff, the Ist and 2nd year students from the finalists and especially the workers and the students, had precisely the opposite effect. For the first time at Kent University there started a unified struggle of Students and the catering staff. (See also the Lancaster Cleaners' pamphlet. The following quotation from a resolution passed almost unanimously by a joint branch meeting of N.U.P.E., G.M.W.U. illustrates this point. *The Kent University branches of the National Union of Public Employees and the General and Municipal Workers Union express their appreciation of the action taken by the students against the catering report, support the occupation, and will provide food for students and staff while catering services are closed. Now the fragile solidarity between the workers and the stud. ents will begin to be tested. Already this is threatened by the arrival of one of the big union bureaucrats of N.U.P.E. who is prepared to ditch the platform of :NO REDUNDANCIES NO PRICE RISES NO JOB LOSS TOWN AND GOWN-SPREAD THE CAMPAIGN THE RE-OPENING OF THE CATERING.
The eventual decision of the college authorities to re-open the catering facilities was a considerable success for the occupation especially since they were forced to do this while the students were still refusing to call off the disruptions. FRAGILE SOLIDARITY.
The branches instruct their stewards, in co-operation with the students, to negotiate with the university authorities for the re-opening of catering facilities, to be preceded by a union meeting of all members of college staff at 10am on the day of re-opening. The branches reaffirm the proposals for cuts in working hours and redundancies are totally unacceptable"
A number of the catering staff volunteered to cook for the sit in and a few of the younger staff sat in themselves. NATURE OF THE LABOUR MOVEMENT IN KENT. One thing that we have been constantly forced to face is the lack even of trade-union consciousness amongst the majority of workers at the university. This is generally true of the whole area, with the notable exception of the Kent miners. There is no experience of struggle, low level of unionisation, and unorganised women form the predominant section of the work-force. In the early stages of the campaign, members of Socialist Woman tried to combat the isolation and fragmentation of the domestic and catering staff. However, it is of course difficult to do this during the course of just one struggle. One cleaner left the union as soon as direct action was proposed, while another said her husband would throw her out of the house if she joined the union. And, of course shift working, family pressures and responsibilities made it difficult for the women to attend meetings.
NATIONAL IMPLICATIONS It is important that this dispute is not confined to the university alone. Since the University is the biggest employer in Canterbury, an area of high unemployment, it is necessary that the campaign should be introduced and fought in the Town. Already, over 200 signatures in support of the struggle have been collected from the Employment Exchange. A Town Rally has been organised at which an Action Committee will be elected to fight for the Campaign in Canterbury. The crisis in catering at the University is not the result of local bungling by the authorities, on the contrary, the situation here is part of a national problem resulting from State Policy to have Education on the Cheap. The University Grants Committee has a deliberate policy that university catering should not be subsidised and must break even financially. The Kent authorities have also decided that the expensive Collegiate System of 'eating in hall' should be maintained. The only way therefore to turn a catering loss into a profit or at least break even is to hit the students and workers with price rises and redundancies.
Other Universities such as Surrey are also experiencing similar attacks on catering facilities.
Becanse the outcome of the Kent struggle is crucial for Students and workers throughout the country a national demonstration is being organised in Canterbury.
Donations, Messages of Solidarity, and requests for further information should be addressed to:Dave Jones, C/o Student Union Office, University of Kent, Canterbury.
NO REDUNDANCIES, NO JOB LOSS, NO PRICE INCREASES WORKER/STUDENT VETO ON THE AUTHORITIES ACTIONS Canterbury S. W.G.
[page 6]
Mrs. Maire Drumm, recently-elected Joint President of the