(By Daniel Randall, NUS Trustee. In a strictly - STRICTLY - personal capacity…)

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Despite a background of impressive grassroots struggles against cuts and fees, NUS conference 2010 (Newcastle, April 13-15) saw the Blairite leadership of the national union entrench itself and push further down the road of bureaucratisation, depoliticisation and capitulation to the government. Even by the low standards of recent years, it was a bad conference for the left and those who want a campaigning student movement – at a time when students need one more than ever.
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This year’s NUS conference (13-15 April, in Newcastle, the first not to take place in Blackpool for decades) meets against the background of huge cuts to higher education – some of the first New Labour’s cuts to really bite. We have seen the development of anti-cuts groups on many campuses and big struggles at a series of institutions, notably Tower Hamlets, London Met, Leeds, Westminster and Sussex. The National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts has linked up and organised student activists in a fight back across the country.

Unfortunately, very little of this will be reflected at the conference. With the new, anti-democratic structure pushed through last year and the recent dramatic cut in delegation sizes, the conference will be more dominated by friends of the leadership among conservative sabbaticals than ever.
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Sussex students have built a powerful campaign, made strong links with lecturers and other campus workers in struggle and pushed their management onto the back foot. How did they do it? The National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts is organising a speaker tour with activists from Sussex Stop the Cuts, including reinstated student Patrick Rolfe, to spread the lessons of their struggle and build the national anti-cuts movement.

The tour will take place at the end of April and the start of May. Dates confirmed so far:

Leeds University – 21 April
University of East Anglia – 22 April
Manchester Metropolitan University – 28 April
Surrey University – Lecture Theater TD1, University Of Surrey, Guildford. Wednesday 5th May, 7.15 – 9.45.

There will also be meetings at Westminster, UCL, Kent, Cambridge, Oxford, Sheffield, Hull, Birmingham, Gloucester and Newcastle – dates tbc.

If you would like to organise a meeting at your college or university email againstfeesandcuts@gmail.com or ring 07775 763 750.

From the National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts:

As staff at Sussex go on strike against cuts today, we are happy to announce several important victories that the anti-cuts campaign have won already!

In a packed Student Union Emergency General Meeting with over 750 students present, a vote of no confidence in the Vice Chancellor and the senior management was overwhelmingly passed. That is a great blow against the legitimacy of management.

While that was taking place, the University Senate voted to re-instate the Sussex 6, and to organise an independent investigation into the events surrounding the calling of the police on the 3rd of March. The only members of the Senate who voted against were the unelected senior management.

The Sussex anti-cuts campaign have won a victory for all students. They have sent a clear signal to university managers that heavy-handed, brutal authoritarian tactics on our campuses will not go unpunished.

Now students and staff around the world should send messages of congratulations and support the Sussex strike!

At a time when university workers and students are facing massive cuts, more than 80 university heads now ‘earn’ more than £200,000. 19 get more than £300,000. Some have received 15 or 20 percent increases in the last year, and some seen their salary double or even triple in ten years. In contrast, HE lecturers have received an average increase of 45.7 percent over the same period.
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What follows is from the National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts. Below that is an update from the Sussex occupiers. See the Defend Sussex blog for frequent updates.

This just in from Sussex. More information to follow as we get more updates from the occupied lecture theatre:

Defend the Sussex Six!

At 1pm, a demonstration of several hundred marched around the campus at Sussex University. It was the largest demonstration yet, and included many members of staff– some of whom spoke directly in front of Sussex House, the home of management.

As of right now, there are 200 people gathered in a lecture theatre (where no lectures are scheduled), drafting a list of demands for VCEG, the Vice Chancellor’s Executive Group. They are refusing to leave until Vice Chancellor Michael Farthing or another member of the VCEG comes in person to pick up the petition demanding the reinstatement of the six students who were suspended, and until he meets their demands.

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Update from Defend Sussex

At 14:30 today (11 March) 300 students and staff occupied the Lecture theatre Arts A2 in defiance of the high court injunction placed upon all persons entering or remaining on Sussex Campus and involved in the vaguely defined act of ‘occupational protest’.

The occupation is in protest against the suspension and exclusion of six students involved in the previous occupation of Sussex House calling for their unconditional reinstatement. We, the occupiers, stand in solidarity with all staff and workers facing compulsory redundancy, and all other areas on campus affected by the devestating cuts implemented by management.

We, the occupiers, have unanimously decided to remain until our demands are met. Until they are met this space will be open to all students and workers. We will use it for educational lectures, talks, critical debates, film screenings and to create an environment where the university community can come together to educate one another in an environment determined by us and for us.

We call upon students, workers and the wider community, locally, nationally, globally, to join us in the fight against educational cuts, job losses and the cuts in the public and private sectors. Strike! Occupy! Resist!