IT’S TIME TO UNIONISE OXFORD OXFORD WORKER JUSTICE
Let's face it: in many ways, Oxford is backward and slow to change. From disability access to fossil fuel divestment, this is not a university that necessarily likes to move with the times. The unions are no exception to this rule. If you haven't heard of the University and Colleges Union (UCU) voting for industrial action, it may be because at Oxford the union is only recognised at departmental level. In other words, if academics had chosen to strike, they would only have been allowed to strike against the department. So there would have been no classes or labs, but tutorials would have gone ahead unhindered. Given the demographics of OULC subjects, we can assume that most people reading this article would therefore hardly have noticed such a strike! These conditions are hardly conducive to workers' power, and yet in Oxford it is the best possible scenario for anyone hoping to advance workers' rights.
We do not want to minimise the difficulty that academics have had in organising, especially in the context of the restrictive trade union laws that govern this country. We also note that many UCU members are zero-hour tutorial staff, in which case they would not be able to strike. However, there is a much larger group of Oxford staff, in worse conditions, with even less opportunity to organise. These are the people you see every day, day in and day out: the scouts, the kitchen staff, the service staff, and those behind the scenes supporting the students in every Oxford college. From time to time you may see an article online about an Oxford college offering a position, but not offering the Oxford Living Wage. Perhaps the institution has even claimed to be a 'living wage employer', although this accreditation is hardly
https://www.oxfordworkerjustice.co.uk/
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