LYIT faculty staff on strike today.
LYIT lecturers and researchers have gone on strike action over a range of crisis issues within their sector.
The strike has been organised by the Teachers’ Union of Ireland (TUI), which represents 4,000 academic staff in Institutes of Technology.
It follows an overwhelming mandate from members for industrial action after a national ballot in December.
Despite the current rhetoric about economic recovery, lecturers see first-hand the significant damage that austerity cuts continue to wreak on the education system and the students it serves.
The strike action is supported by the Union of Students in Ireland (USI).
Key areas of concern include:
- The hugely detrimental effect of an era of cutbacks on the quality of service to students (larger class sizes, less access to laboratories, tutorials, student support etc)
- The chronic underfunding of the Institutes of Technology (35% cut to sector- €190m – between 2008 and 2015)
- The critically low staffing levels in the sector at a time of a steep and ongoing increase in student numbers and the consequential unacceptable workload imposition on lecturers
- (21,411 or 32% rise in student numbers in sector between 2008 and 2015 / 535 or 9.5% fall in full-time academic staff numbers in sector between 2008 and 2015)
- The precarious employment status, income poverty and associated exploitation of many academic staff
The strike action is expected to last for one day, but there could be further strikes in the coming weeks and months ahead.
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