Let's do as Nige says...
(This is an article I wrote around a year ago about Warwick university and Nigel thrift, which is only more relevant now) Now, some people (myself included), might have thought that after last year’s uproar, occupations and newspaper coverage, that Mr. Nigel “Critical Geographer” Thrift might have this year decided to live up to his namesake: maybe just a nominal pay rise, or slightly above inflation. But no. “But of course,” we’re told by Peter Dunn and his cronies “we’d love to raise wages, but we live in the real world...we’re in austerity, everyone has to make sacrifices.” Everyone except them, and Mr. Thrift it seems. This decision is either ill-judged, or actively Callous. Why? In the past five years, support staff, junior lecturers, and many other employees have experienced a 15% real wage cut- a cut that follows one of the fastest rates of decline in pay for any profession since wwII. This also happens at a time in which the institution is charging us NINE GRAND fees. Bursaries are also being cut, or divested into “fee waivers” -which are next to useless if, like myself, you can’t actually afford to live at university without a bursary Despite a reported £19.5M surplus, we seemingly cannot find the cash. And yet average spending on teaching has been steadily declining. Whilst management wages go up. The reasons cited for the pay rise are equally “thrifty” with the truth: They say that this merely recompensing him for the 3 year pay freeze that he so honorably took, to appear sympathetic to wage freezes across the university in 2006-2009. LIES. THIS IS THE SAME REASON THEY GAVE LAST YEAR: DESPITE THE FACT THAT LAST YEARS PAY RISE COVERED THE REAL TERMS CUT HE ELECTED TO TAKE, AND THEN SOME ON TOP. It wasn’t true then, and it is even less true now. And even if it were: When will everyone else be compensated for their cuts in wage? Or funding? The answer is never. The glaring holes and inaccuracies point to one thing: That this is nothing to do with efficiency, merit, cost-saving, or whatever words the managerial pig-dogs would have us gobble up. This has to do with running this university, or better, as a factory. A perception-factory. We pay the fees. As soon as they have our money they no longer have to care about us; only about appearing to care about us to prospective students, and caring about research and innovation, to foster better imbrication within the corrupt corporate machine. The “democratic structures” of the university only exist in order to show they exist; if they were truly democratic, there would be no need for structures in order for students and workers to play a part in the preservation and development of the university. Those who make the university should own it; not those who seek to profit from it. With the introduction of fees they have seized the opportunity; they bank on students now only thinking of university as an investment in a piece of paper with letters from a place with a good reputation. This allows them, via a narrative of debt, instability and precarity, to drive a wedge between “radicals” like myself, and people who just want to keep their head down and get a 2:1 and get a good job. It pits us against our lecturers and staff; because when they strike against unfair pay and conditions, we see them stealing a good we payed for. And whilst we’re all so busy clambering over one another for an internship, or a grad scheme NO MATTER THE CONSEQUENCES, Thrift and his ilk can award themselves disgusting pay rises on money that could raise wages and hence the overall standard of teaching; money that could improve facilities; that could widen admittance to courses.... It is not as if the university has ever been a democratic utopia; but this ‘ivory tower’ is being turned into a bleak, moribund business estate. The occupation of last year has not driven the message home; they have not felt their power threatened. But Thrifts pay rise is merely a repellent symptom of this vile cancerous fucking system. As such, we must envision the university as just one site of struggle within a broader nexus of exploitation. Pay rises for management and fees go hand in hand with the persecution of squatting and the cutting of the NHS. The university is one site of systemic exploitation. It is but one site of wider industrial conflict. We must act accordingly. We must start at the pay rise and escalate, taking the charge to the whole of society, demanding what they see as the impossible that for us has to be actual. We must build a broad campaign embracing a variety of tactics; From poster campaigns to blockades; from demos to viral videos; from chalking to setting up a student housing co-op to undercut your shitty landlord; from stealing meals from the library cafe to give to homeless ex-big issue sellers victimized by university security to sabotaging prestigious events and decrying the vice-chancellor for the hypocrite he is; from scrawling your inner thoughts on toilet doors to hacking into the university mainframe and shutting down power to the campus on strike days; from challenging lecturers who cow-tow to the market teaching ‘philosophy for business’ to taking the senate chamber and hosting a sick rave... As your careers department is no doubt so fond of telling you, there are so many opportunities. And it only takes a few people with an idea to start. Do it yourself; no one will do it for you! The stakes are high; it’s more than just another pay rise. Every moment that passes with the university functioning as it does, is the choice between a space for critique and transformation or a securitized corporate behemoth where everything costs and nothing is worth anything. As Thrift himself (hilariously enough,) states “We are seeing the rise of a hierarchical order which increasingly constructs its power by both producing and using diversity. In these circumstances, an imperative for the left is to identify the varied sites and geographies of hierarchical power, and not shy away if that journey takes us into unfamiliar territory. The rise of right-wing politics of various kinds which are clearly associated with a series of state and corporate ideologies and practices...must be denied any room in the world...and must be rolled back.” So lets do what Nige says. Starting with his paypacket, and in time, the whole fucking university.