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Tuesday 3rd December will see university and college staff throughout the country walk out of work in the second day of strike action, as part of a continuing row over pay and conditions.

Higher education workers – including lecturers as well as non-academic staff – have suffered what effectively amounts to a 13% pay cut in real terms since the outbreak of the world economic crisis in 2008, with pay rises consistently staying below inflation and living costs increasing by 15% in the same period. Terms and working conditions are being eroded – as growing casualisation of labour is taking place in the education sector, universities and colleges employ increasing numbers of teaching staff on precarious zero-hour contracts. Unions also highlight the increase in the gender pay gap and the fact that over 4,000 HE employees are paid below the living wage.



 
by Sam Bayliss, UCLU Marxists
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Slavoj Žižek, a Slovenian "Marxist" philosopher and cultural critic, spoke at UCL's European Institute on Tuesday 26th November on the subject of "What Does Europe Want?", with Srećko Horvat, a Croatian philosopher with whom Žižek recently co-authored a book of the same name. Žižek and Horvat will attempt to discuss the current problems of the European Union as they see them, namely that the EU has descended into a period of "irrationality" causing widespread outbursts of violence, both from the State and the masses, that, according to Žižek and Horvat runs contrary to the peace and security upon which the European Union is supposedly predicated.


 
by Sam Bayliss, UCLU Marxists
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The ABC of Dialectical Materialism, written by Leon Trotsky in 1939, makes the distinction between vulgar thought and the pattern of thought of dialectical materialism; the major difference between the two being, as is outlined, the feature of motion or change that is present in dialectics. The article, demonstrates this by comparing the vulgar thought of Aristotle with the dialectics of Hegel and Marx.


 
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 UCLU Marxists
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At the weekly organisational meeting of the UCLU Marxists yesterday the society discussed the upcoming strike of university staff throughout the country.

On Oct 31st trade unions UCU (university college lecturers union), UNITE and UNISON will strike over attacks to pay. The Marxist Student Federation, to which UCLU Marxists are affiliated, has proposed the following resolution (see below) to be raised in student unions. The UCLU Marxists voted to adopt the resolution, and later at the public meeting got an indicative vote from the room unanimously in favour. Over forty pounds has now been raised for the striking staff, and the UCLU Marxists plans to invite a UCU rep to speak to the society at their meeting next Wednesday (changed from the usual Thursday meeting so as not to cross the picket lines). The resolution will now be submitted to the student union council.


 
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.