The Irish Congress of Trade Unions is today holding a national day of protest against pay cuts in the public and private sectors, as well as cuts in public services.
The move marks the beginning of an ICTU campaign to fight any move to cut workers’ pay and pensions or to slash funding for public services. Several trade unions in the education sector are calling on workers to join a protest, starting at Parnell Square at 2:30pm.
Staff and students in UCD are assembling outside the Arts Block today at 1pm before heading into Trinity College to join up with other members of the Siptu education branch at 2:15pm.
- 1pm UCD Arts Block: students & students and staff meet up to head into Trinity College
- 2:15pm Trinity College: SIPTU Education Branch meets before heading to Parnell Square for the march.
- 2:30pm Parnell Square: The march kicks-off
FEE Maynooth will also be joining the demonstration.
The Neoliberal Restructuring of Education
Growth in the Irish economy during the Celtic Tiger was fueled by a manufacturing industry dominated by foreign direct investment up until 2001. Subsequent growth was largely the result of a property/construction boom up until the recent crash. The government now plans to move to a ‘knowledge economy’ based on indigenous innovators and entrepreneurs. As a part of this shift to a ‘knowedge economy’ – or a ‘smart economy ‘ as the government has renamed it - is an intensification of the restructuring of higher education and the creation of a quasi-market across Europe for credentialised knowledge.
This process is not being driven by either students or staff; it’s driven by priorities shaped by the needs of the business sector in order to provide themselves with the academic research and skilled workers that they need to increase their profit margins. Making education subordinate to the market will lead to a reduction in funding for courses in arts, humanities and social sciences, as business involvement in education will result in the scrapping of subjects that aren’t seen as “profitable”. Research in areas such as science and medicine run the risk of becoming distorted due to the source of funding. In 2006, UCDs Greary Institute recieved a grant of €1.5 million from the alcoholic beverage company Diageo. The grant was intended to fund a 3-year study of health risk behavior in relation to hazardous drinking among young adults (aged 18-25 years) in Ireland. The obvious conflict of interests was immaterial to the UCD authorities. According to the The Irish Times, “Mr Walsh [Diageos chief executive] said the issue was, for Diageo, a simple one. He said the company did not want problems with binge drinking to lead governments to place higher taxes on its products and thus eat into revenues. The UCD research funding is thus the perfect example of “enlightened self- interest,” particularly in light of the taxes placed on alcopops over recent years” (The Irish Times, April 8, 2006).
The commericalisation of education been occurring across Europe under the guise of the ‘Bologna Process‘. The government aims to ‘position Ireland as a location of choice in the International Education market’. As a result, a marketing process has seen universities spend millions on improving the quality of their image and branding, rather than improving the quality of the education they provide, and the working conditions of their employees.
This restructuring of higher education can only be analysed as part of the broader economic and political process of neoliberalism. As a result of neoliberal policies, a common pattern has emerged in how public services as a whole are treated:
- there is a systematic public underinvestment (relative to growth)
- a shift to introduce/increase user charges
- opening up of the public services to the involvement of private capital
- attempts to undermine the pay & employment conditions of workers
- new public managerialism – the importation of corporate governance structures into the public sector to create greater ‘efficencies’ by implementing work practices that border on Taylorism
Lack of Public investment
Although plans for the reintroduction of tuition fees have been temporarily shelved, the government still plans to continue its policy of shifting the burden of funding away from general taxation, and on to direct student contributions. The recent 67% hike in the registration fee now means that, despite a rhetorical commitment to ‘free’ education, Irish students pay more than students in several other European countries which have implemented tuition fees. If newspaper reports are to be believed, the government plans to introduce another hike in the registration fee, while imposing a cut of up to 10% in the maintenance grant. Of the €1500 ‘registration fee’, €600 already goes directly back into the state coffers.
Colleges themselves have begun to impose new service charges on students to help plug the gap in funding - UCD has introduced charges for the student health service while UCC has introduced an extra conferring charge.
Since many local authorities currently lack adequate funding to make grant payments, a significant number of students have yet to receive any funding since the beginning of the college year. USI estimates that an average of 50 students per week are dropping out of education as a result. Many students are forced to enter into debt to cover the cost, while those who can manage to find work often end up in the low-paid, non-unionised service sector. Several studies have shown that there is a direct link between educational performance and the amount of part-time work students engage in, with those working longer hours being negatively affected. Suggestions that the minimum wage could be lowered would only add to the increasing immiserisation of student life.
The Levy & Embargo
A public sector embargo on recruitment and promotion has meant that classes, lectures, tutorials, library hours and science laboratories have been cut across the higher education sector to the detriment of both students and staff. The embargo is being used to facilitate a permanent, structural reduction in the numbers of staff serving in the public sector as a whole.
Government policy documents have outlined plans for rationalisation (job losses) of the education sector in conjunction with a process of casualisation of academic labour. A series of Public-Private Partnerships for the building of educational facilities have also been approved, and will be used to undermine the pay and working conditions of ancillary staff. Already staff have been subjected to the pension levy which, according to the government, will generate as estimated €1 billion by the end of the year. As SIPTU and IFUT ballot for industrial action, university presidents such as Hugh Brady at UCD and John Hegarty, the provost of Trinity College Dublin, have recently been awarded a pay rise of 19%.
A motion of opposition to the introduction of tuition fees was adopted by ICTU at their last conference – it’s now up to students to join with staff. The root cause of the problems faced by students are the same as those being faced by staff in the education sector, the public sector as a whole, and the users of public services. Students don’t exist in an bubble.
It’s time for students and their representative organisations to go beyond the myopic issue of tuition fees, and to develop a holistic analysis of the role of education in a post-industrial society; why education is being restructured, in whose interests it is being restructured, what the effects of that restructuring are, and what an alternative could look like? There are recent examples of students tackling the underlying dynamics negatively affecting the education system across Europe, such as the recent student occupations in Austria and the Italian ‘Anomalous Wave’.
Public services such as education have to be funded; the most equitable way of doing this is by making those who can afford to pay, pay the most – through the tax system. Free Education for Everyone has always offered its solidarity to education workers unions on campus, and we recognise that building links between education workers and students is essential if we are to combat the cutbacks destroying education at all levels. Educational disadvantage is the result of interrelated economic and political policies, operating both inside and outside of the education system – it can only be tackled by challenging the fundamental driving forces behind it.
Todays rally can only be the start. On March 30th, we saw a day of action cancelled only days in advance by the ICTU executive in order to re-enter fruitless talks, despite strike balloting suggesting massive levels of anger amongst the membership of the unions. It is time for a serious show of strength from workers, and students must support this by also helping to build support for a national strike on November 24th.
‘Get Up, Stand Up’ on November 6th – but remember – the campaign against cutbacks in education and the commercialisation of Irish education is not a one day affair.
See also:
UCD Siptu vote in favour of stike action
‘Universities or Knowledge Factories‘ (2006) produced by Siptu Education Branch
Univerisites in a Neoliberal World (2006) by Alex Callinicos – A critical analysis of the restructuring of the British education system. Outlines a similar road which the government will attempt to force Irish education to travel.
Mercator report for UCD on brand image and visual identity (power point)
UCD Academic Staff Asscoiation newsletter – contains Freedom of Information replies on UCDs spending on consultants
University challenged: students and staff ‘demoralised’ by changes at UCD – Sunday Tribune article
