By UCLU Marxists
PictureTony Brown, UCL UCU branch secretary
The UCLU Marxists were manning the picket lines of the recent UCU, Unison and Unite strike on campus on October 31st, showing their solidarity with striking staff. They were there from first thing in the morning right through to the end and the rally to Conway hall. They provided hot drinks and refreshments to all on the picket line through the strike fund collections made at society meetings in previous weeks.

On the day UCLU Marxists got to interview branch secretary of the UCU (College lecturers' union) at UCL for the Spark, to help further the cause of striking staff and ensure that the university workers' voice is heard among a wider layer of the students.


 
By Guy Howie, UCLU Marxists
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Higher Education workers across the country will be involved in a day of strike action on Thursday 31st October - and students across the country must support it.


 
By Monty Shield
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Student-led organizations; a fight to end a rise in tuition fees amid government debt; protests; government opposition… surely this is a situation that sounds very familiar to the average UK student, who could now leave university with around a reported £53,000 worth of debt? 


 
By Timur Dautov, UCLU Marxist Society President
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Having taken part in student union elections for the first time since its establishment, the Marxist Student Federation (MSF) can now celebrate its first success, as it had laid the first stone in the foundation of its intervention in the NUS in the coming year. In the recent elections in UCL, the MSF ran two candidates for the positions of NUS delegate, one of whom secured a confident victory. Sian Creely, elected one of UCL’s six delegates to the NUS, will be taking a clear socialist programme to the NUS National Conference in April 2014.


 
By Timur Dautov, UCLU Marxists President
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As autumn elections in UCLU are underway, UCL students are due to give their mandate to 6 delegates who will represent them at the NUS National Conference in April 2014. The levels of participation are strikingly low – 6 vacancies are contested by only 8 candidates, and students generally are unaware that there are any elections taking place. Thus, it is crucial to address the importance of these elections, as well as the role of the NUS generally, and how Marxist students should approach it. 


 
By Sian Creely, UCLU Marxists

The upcoming elections for UCLU’s NUS (National Union of Students) delegates have slipped under the radar of many, if not most, students.  A passing glance at the Union website reveals nothing but a repeated invitation to join the gym at a discounted price.  ‘But hurry,’ it implores against a backdrop of biceps, ‘don’t miss this opportunity to resign yourself to the lack of municipal sports facilities by paying an inordinate sum for the privilege of exercise!’.  Voting for a whole host of Union positions from Faculty Representatives to Student Trustees, on the other hand, starts in a week but unless you’d caught the two second window where this information is displayed on the home page, or fished the leaflet out of your information pack, you’d be none the wiser.  This, a cynic might say, is emblematic of the Union at present- more focused on its profit making activities than democracy, transparency and activism.