Last week’s action was warming to the soul, if freezing everywhere else. What an amazing lot you are! Highlights included the Monday rally with Sally Hunt, General Secretary of UCU, and the meteoric rise of the Dinosaur of Solidarity, now a Strike of 2018 superstar (other branches are now requesting appearances…).
Here is the schedule for this week’s strike activities. After each day’s pickets, UCU has organised a series of teach-outs for students and staff to learn together during the strike action. Please do come along and join these and support your striking lecturers. You can download the teach-outs schedule here.
You can sign our open letter to the VC here, for delivery on 9 March.
All activities subject to change (who knows, the dispute may be called off!). More activities may be added, so keep your eyes on Twitter and Facebook for updates.
MONDAY 5 March: (am dry and breezy, showers later)
| 8am – 12pm | Morning picket – meet with picket coordinators or come to Union House
Twitter challenge: Where is The Dinosaur of Solidarity? |
| 12pm | Rally at Highfield – petition to go to VC at 1230pm |
| 2pm-4pm | Teach-out, Trago Lounge, Portswood Road
WTF does my lecturer actually do all day? Christopher Gutteridge from iSolutions has worked near and with academics for over 20 years. He will give a tour of what the hell it is that academics actually do all day (when they are not on strike). |
TUESDAY 6 March: (breezy all day)
| 8am – 12pm | Morning picket – meet with picket coordinators or come to Union House
THERE WILL BE CAKE. TODAY IS THE DAY OF CAKE. |
| 2pm-4pm | Teach-out, SUSU meeting room 2, Level 1 B42
Strikes on Screen: Representing Workers You’ve seen us on the picket Iine, but is that what strikes always look like? Cinema has long told stories about workers and their struggle for fairness. Dr Shelley Cobb, Dr Louis Bayman and Prof Nicky Marsh will take you through a history of strikes on screen, then look closely at the context and conditions of strikes and workers in 80s Britain, concluded by a look at women’s strikes and the gendered issues of workplace equality. |
| 4pm-5.30pm | Teach-out, October Books, 243 Portswood Road
How do you teach creativity? Can you teach creative writing? How can we use our imaginations to engage with the world around us? Join writer and teacher at Itchen College, Catrin Mascall, for a creative writing workshop and open discussion about how we teach creativity in schools and beyond. This session is in support of October Books. |
WEDNESDAY 7 March: (showers in the am)
| 8am – 12pm | Morning picket – meet with picket coordinators or come to Union House
POP PICKETS CHALLENGE – video your picket singing! Lyrics sheets will be available, but we’d love to see what you come up with. |
| 1pm-2pm | Southampton University Community Choir, Turner Sims Concert Hall |
| 2pm-4pm | Teach-out, Swaythling Neighbourhood Centre (by the entrance to Hampton Car Park) NOTE CHANGE OF VENUE
Resistance histories Come and hear lecturers in History talk about how people in the past have used their imagination and skill in resisting oppression. Whether in the ancient world, 20th-century Europe or our own times, when faced with armed force or with a ‘new normal’ that they reject, men and women have found ways to think, liaise and refuse. |
THURSDAY 9 March: (showers all day)
| 8am – 11.30pm | Morning picket – meet with picket coordinators or come to Union House
IT’S INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY! Come to your picket prepared to celebrate. |
| 1145am | Meet at Highfield, Building 37, for a rousing finish to the strike week. |
| 1.30pm-3.30pm | Teach-out, SUSU meeting room 2, Level 1 B42
Is homelessness the fault of the individual or society? Official figures indicate that homelessness and rough sleeping have been rising over the last 7 years. Why are the numbers of people living and dying on the streets continuing to rise? Are those individuals responsible for their own misfortune? Or is society to blame? This lecture will unpack what we know about micro and macro factors It will formulate rough sleeping as an interaction between the individual and environmental, exploring how policy and economic variables interact with mental health and individual coping to cause and maintain homelessness. |