65% of Newcastle Students support UCU strikes

‘The Tab’ online student paper conducted a survey on student support of UCU strikes, finding that only 64.6% of Newcastle University students support lectures in their pursuit for fairer wages and pension protections compared to a 70% average across all surveyed institutions. 

Newcastle finds itself 16th out of 23 of Universities, with more than 100 responses to the poll, trailing behind the likes of King’s College London with a reported support rate of 74.7%, Cambridge, with a rate of 80.3%, and at the top with the highest reported rates of support for lecture strikes Glasgow University where just over 16% of students said they didn’t support the industrial action compared to some 83.6% who did. 

While Newcastle may seem low in comparison to other responding Universities a YouGov poll taken in January that surveyed some 2,000 people found that only a paltry 36% of the general public were in support of the university strikes. 

In response to these findings Jo Grady, the UCU general secretary, told the Tab “Students back their staff taking action because they see day in day out the way that it treats those who do the work inside our universities,” Singling out the Vice-chancellors that hold “£40bn in reserves,” Grady says university leadership would rather “hoard,” this money then use “a fraction of it,” it to settle the disputes; adding “everyday of teaching students lose is completely the fault of vice-chancellors who refuse to invest in staff and refuse to invest in students,”.