The General Union of Public Services (ACOD) UGent has been campaigning around these demands since May last year. A petition for a minimum €14 per hour has been running since September 2019, which has now been signed by more than 3,500 staff members and students. Some successful action days were organised: on 14th October, some 70 students, staff members and sympathisers campaigned together. In the following months, a campaign was conducted in the classes, the student restaurants and on the work-floor.
As a result, a broad support base has been built up for the demands, but the University Board has not seem willing to respond. It was therefore decided to step up the campaign at the beginning of this year: organising a strike to increase the pressure.
A strike day was chosen for 9th March 2020. For the past three years, a Women’s Strike against sexism and for equal opportunities for women and men has been organised at UGent on 8th March. In recent years, this campaign mainly focused on the demands of researchers: the unequal career opportunities of women, making researchers’ careers more compatible with family life, etc.
For the action on 9th March 2020 — 8th March is a Sunday — the organisers of the Women’s Strike decided to include the demands of the union campaign: a minimum wage of €14/hour, the extension of the statutory appointment (contracts with public sector, rather than private sector conditions) for staff working in the social sector (student housing, student restos, nurseries, etc.) and the insourcing of the cleaning, now organised by subcontractor ISS.
Over the past weeks, delegations from ACOD UGent, Algemene Centrale ISS (the trade union at ISS) and the organisers of the women’s strike have been around all the workplaces of the restos, the cleaning staff and the nurseries. The campaign and its demands have been discussed and the readiness for action gauged. Support has proved to be widespread: many staff members were keen to take action on these demands. A strike notification was then submitted.
The movement we have seen at UGent over the past few months is unique in many facets. The union is fighting offensive demands: not as a defence against attacks on working conditions and rights, but as an offensive fight for a serious improvement of working conditions.
The union is fighting offensive demands: not as a defence against attacks on working conditions and rights, but as an offensive fight for a serious improvement of working conditions.
Introducing a minimum wage of €14/hour, which would mean a net wage increase of almost €300 per month for the lowest wages. For staff in the restaurants and kindergartens, statutory appointment would seriously strengthen their rights in the event of long-term illness or retirement and improve their job security. The insourcing of cleaning will make it easier to enforce correct working conditions and will make it easier to defend the interests of the staff responsible for cleaning.
Also unique is the close cooperation between ACOD UGent, the trade union of the “parent company”, and the Algemene Centrale, the trade union of the cleaning subcontractor. Delegates of both ‘companies’ campaigned side by side, thus organising solidarity between workers across the borders of their company. Together they stand up for the interests of everyone working in UGent’s buildings, whether they work directly for UGent or for a subcontractor.
Finally, there is also cooperation between the trade union and wider layers of militant researchers and students: students from ALS, Campagne Rosa, Jongsocialisten and Comac took action with the staff, and among the organisers of the women’s strike we also find activists who are not trade union militants.
The action of 9th March is an important next test for this campaign: a successful strike can provide a new momentum to take the campaign to a higher level: transforming passive support into active mobilisation. Moreover, if the strike is indeed as successful as anticipated, it will be the largest strike at UGent in the last decades. This will fundamentally change the balance of power at the university.