Students picket UEA management HQ

On Wednesday March 3 the UEA Fight Fees and Cuts group organised a protest to fall alongside the national wave of action. By all accounts it takes courage to start protesting cuts which haven’t been announced yet, but activists know they’re planned and sent a strong message – whatever the cuts, we're ready!

We started at around 12 with banner painting in the main square. This got a fair bit of attention, with people signing their name to the banner. We did a last push to assemble the protest and managed to get around 100 people involved. Whilst organisers rushed around getting people together and motivated we also dealt with the press who came to cover the days action, with BBC and ITV regional stations airing us twice that day!

We marched the students through the campus, ending up at the Vice Chancellor’s office, which had police covering the doors. The Pro-VC came out to offer us a meeting with 6 delegates, which the protest refused. The protest was quite militant and people were up for an occupation but an aggressive police presence lining the doors to the VC’s office made this difficult. So instead, 40 people made a picket line outside, demanding the Pro-VC address a full student meeting on the extent of the cuts.

Finally he agreed to negotiate between five of us, and agreed to attend Union Council the next night. The student union agreed immediately to organise it and his face dropped! This was a real victory and a great start to the campaign.

The next evening the Pro-VC came to Union Council, where he conducted what can only be described as a whitewash. But anti-fees and cuts activists weren’t in the mood for posturing – we were able to draw out some of his lies, pressuring him to in the end to admit job losses were on the cards.

He has since refused a public meeting with a representative from the University and Colleges Union, –maybe he needs some time to recover!

The heavy police presence on campus alongside management’s refusal to reveal the cuts tell us everything: UEA management are hiding behind closed doors and quaking in their boots. Our message to UEA management is clear –“you can hide, but you can’t run!”