In February 2020, 74 universities affiliated to the UCU (University and College Union) began 14 days of industrial action, launching ‘Four Fights’ over casualisation of labour, unsafe workloads, falling pay, and gender and ethnicity pay gaps. The strikes became national news, supported by staff and students alike, with vibrant picket lines at many “art schools” across the country speaking out against exorbitant tuition fees, massive pay gaps between vice chancellors and lecturers, the punitive and racist Prevent programme introduced to stop student ‘radicalisation’, the digitalisation of courses and much more.

Juliet Jacques – herself a visiting lecturer at the Royal College of Art, where 90% of staff are casualised – spoke to artist and researcher Dr Annie Goh, a lecturer in Fine Art at Central Saint Martins and an Associate Lecturer in Sound Arts at London College of Communication, and Kyran Joughin, lecturer in film and critical practice at Wimbledon College of Art (part of the University of the Arts London) about the recent strikes, how the coronavirus crisis might lead to further digitalisation and casualisation, and how staff and students might organise against it. They also discussed the legacy of Thatcher’s assault on the idea of cultural democracy, the marketisation of education and privatisation of knowledge under the New Labour government, and the student protests after the Liberal Democrats broke their promise to abolish tuition fees on joining the Conservative-led coalition in 2010.

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