Callum Dann

You’ll have to continue paying things like the chair rent without being able to access the chair. And all this after a year of not being allowed your haircut…

Picture the scene. You always go to the same barbers; you were told as a kid that you had to get your haircut at this place in particular since they cut hair so well that it would be sure to improve your future prospects. Everyone, from your parents to your teachers, always told you that this barbershop was the place for you. You had to wait till you were 18 before you could get your haircut here, it’s like an exclusive club and those that get their haircut there, well, they are the folk of the future.

But there’s a catch. Every year, before getting your hair cut, you have to pay an entrance fee of £4,500 and that’s a small charge considering you’re local. If you are from further afield, you have to pay much more. And that’s just the yearly entry fee. You then have to pay for chair rent, the food they offer you while you get your hair trimmed and even for the gel - which you could get anywhere else for a cheaper price.

You’ve got, say, 4 haircuts coming up. Woo, you’re feeling great! You’re going to be someone with this swanky haircut.

Alas, you get a letter through your door. The barbers have decided to go on strike - fine, fair play, you say to yourself. But then it dawns on you. You aren’t getting any of your money back, you will not be able to reschedule your prepaid appointments and you’ll have to continue paying things like the chair rent without being able to access the chair. And all this after a year of not being allowed your haircut…

Now apply this to the QUB strikes and you come to the same conclusions. Students are being handed a raw, and let’s be fair, ugly, deal. Again, we are being treated like we are at the bottom of people’s priorities, and that our education means nothing. That is essentially what is happening if the QUB staff go on strike. After a year of lecturers not doing anything to support us during COVID, we are, in some grand irony, being asked to hold out a hand of solidarity to staff - the pinnacles of the 'establishment.'

For some reason, university life has been hijacked by flag waving and impractical politics. The type of politics that means absolutely nothing to the everyday student who simply wants to put their head down, work hard, obtain a degree and get on in life. Students who have suffered more than most in the last year. Students who are paying for an education they have not been getting.

It is not left-wing or right-wing to being against the Student Union supporting a staff strike. It’s common sense.

As students we should sympathise with our learned and esteemed educators - they are the very reason we are here. We can show sympathy for their cause through other means: peaceful protest, SU activism, letters, social media etc. But asking students to again just give up their education for the pursuit of someone else’s agenda? That just isn’t right. If anything, it’s shameful.

What is right is to stand up for your education, that you’ve worked hard for and you’re paying for. It’s right to say no to the staff; no, you do not have our support to delay, infringe and halt my valuable education.

What a facade it is to try and pretend this strike will make a difference - with or without student backing. The same arguments were put forward two years ago when they striked and we are back in the same position. Students are not simply bargaining chips, used at the whim of the educators to bring about change for them. Do you see QUB educators outside Stormont, hand-in-hand with us, when we are fighting against everyday evils?

Not supporting SU backing of the staff strike is the right thing to do. Sure, it’s much easier to accept a few weeks off uni and to stand outside the gates of QUB. But when has the right thing always been the easier thing? What is right is to stand up for your education, that you’ve worked hard for and you’re paying for. It’s right to say no to the staff; no, you do not have our support to delay, infringe and halt my valuable education. Just in the same way we would not accept our barbers doing us dirty.

Let’s stick to the everyday worries of students - real worries, impacting our daily lives: poverty, climate change, social justice and fighting against gross inequalities. When the time comes, vote against the SU supporting the staff strike. Vote common sense. Vote for your education.

Callum Dann is a third year History and Politics student at Queen’s University Belfast and secretary of the Conservative and Unionist society

No more losing out – say no to another UCU strike