University strikes: Academics warn pension reforms could push 'large numbers of people into poverty'

Lecturers and students dance along to steel drums on the steps outside the university building.

But they are not here for a celebration. They are on the picket line at Soas University of London for the first day of strikes against changes to the lecturers’ pensions.

The university is just one of 57 across the UK hosting mass walkouts this week. Thirteen more days of strike action are expected to take place until Friday 16 March.

The dispute centres on proposals put forward by Universities UK (UUK) for changes to the universities superannuation scheme (USS).

The University College Union (UCU) has argued that the current proposals would leave a typical lecturer almost £10,000 a year worse off during retirement.

But UUK says the pension scheme has a deficit of more than £6bn that cannot be ignored.

Speaking to The Independent from the picket line, Tom Armstrong, UCU branch president of Soas, called the proposals “appalling”.

He said: “It is the removal of a guaranteed pension for lecturers.”

The cold winter’s day did not stop students from coming out in force to support the strikers on the picket line at Soas, who provided their lecturers with hot water bottles, tea and biscuits.

“It has been excellent,” Mr Armstrong said. “What has been particularly heartening is the support from students and UNISON members as well. The reaction has been excellent.”

And across Soas and its neighbouring universities - Birkbeck College, University College London, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and Senate House – hundreds attended.

“It has kind of got a bit of a carnival atmosphere – without the weather,” Mr Armstrong said.

As tens of thousands of lecturers and academics took to the picket line in the first day of action, a new YouGov survey revealed that three-in-five students backed their lecturers in the dispute.

And the student support became even clearer when a group of protesters occupied the headquarters of UUK – just 500 yards from Soas - with their banners and drums.

Police officers were called to the Bloomsbury office where they stopped people from entering the front of the building while students were still inside.

One sign in the window of Woburn House called the UUK out for citing their own reports when justifying their contributions to the economy.

But not all students have been as supportive. On the Exeter University students’ guild website, some suggested playing Margaret Thatcher speeches to strikers to remind them about the “value of hard work".

Meanwhile, Conservative minister Liz Truss, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, tweeted her support for “excellent” lecturers who had decided to cross the picket line.

The entrances to the buildings at Soas were lined with people carrying leaflets and placards about the strikes, making it very difficult for academics and students to cross.

Paul O'Connell, a law lecturer at the university, told The Independent the “flawed” pension scheme proposals could “force large numbers of people into poverty”.

He said: “We are taking a stand now on the question of pensions which is important – but it is also part of a bigger fight for many of us, which is about the future of higher education.”

More than 90,000 people have signed online student-led petitions, from 30 different universities, demanding compensation for the loss of teaching hours.

Mr O’Connell added that he thought it was “fair” to ask universities for a refund.