WOinactie wants a national protest day with the support of universities
During a well-attended meeting of lecturers and researchers in Amsterdam, it was decided to organize a national day of action against 'The Hague'. The university boards should participate in this.
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Yesterday afternoon a meeting was held in the library of the University of Amsterdam about the best way to take action against the high workload at the university. UvA professor Rens Bod, organizer of the meeting and driving force behind WOinactie's much-discussed petition, said the turnout was heart-warming. Nearly four hundred interested people came from almost all universities.
Labor Inspectorate
Bid was flanked by chairman Marijtje Jongsma of the VAWO science union, who discussed various forms of action. A general strike against employers makes little sense, she thinks, because it is a political problem. A 'white strike' with punctuality actions, including Utrecht professor Ingrid Robeyns recently called, she says offers more opportunities. Then it becomes clear how many overtime teachers normally work.
Together with the Executive Boards, we want to organize a national action day on which the universities will close all their buildings, except one: there we will give lectures about the reason why we are campaigning.
Another idea was that lecturers would submit a massive complaint to the Labor Inspectorate, but this did not have the desired effect at Leiden University, according to the comments of a Leiden lecturer.
It was also suggested from the audience not to cooperate anymore with the NVAO training inspections, which take a lot of time. University administrators could also be encouraged to do so, who see more in the approval of institutions as a whole, as is already happening in Flanders.
Dent
A teacher from the VU did not see much of the proposals. He believes there is very little support for strikes: “People are committed to their research and extremely loyal to their students. If you really want to put a dent in a package, then you need the boards of directors who support the action and who are willing to close their buildings for a day. That is up to OCW and it resonates enormously in the press. ”
That proposal received broad support and Rens Bod is also pleased with it: “We want to organize a national day of action together with the executive boards on which the universities close all their buildings, except for one: we will then give lectures about why we take action. ”
According to him it will not be easy to get all universities on board. The UvA will succeed, he expects, and Groningen, Nijmegen and Leiden probably will too. "Other universities may require normal lectures to continue, but I don't want to get ahead of that too much."
