Robinson College Rent Strike Open Letter

ROBINSON COLLEGE RENT STRIKE

OPEN LETTER

Sign the open letter to show solidarity with the Rent Strikers and their demands in Robinson College

In the last year, the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the struggles faced by students across the university and in Robinson. We, the students, were made to come back to the University of Cambridge amidst a global pandemic with the false promise of face-to-face teaching and relative normality, with essentially no more welfare support than before. We, the student renters, are paying already exorbitant rent and facing unreasonable disciplinary procedures. We, the international students, have paid to quarantine for weeks with no guarantees about when we can go home. We, the vulnerable students, have been told we must attend face-to-face teaching as we demanded remote study and leave to work away. We, the estranged students, are being threatened with eviction when we’ve got no other home. The Student Union, the JCRs and the MCRs have pushed on these issues to no avail. As the University has put profit before students, a collective resistance has begun through the formation of Rent Strike Cambridge where over 700 students have pledged to rent stike, and in 9 colleges students are pledging to withhold their rent for Easter term.

We recognise that Robinson has been very accommodating in letting students back for Lent term, not charging students who weren’t staying in residence and maintaining a balance between COVID safety and keeping communal spaces.

Nevertheless, the issues outlined above are ever-present in Robinson college. Throughout this letter we will quote anonymous testimonies from students demonstrating this, provided in a survey circulated publicly among Robinson students. For instance, 88.9% of students surveyed said rent at Robinson was either ‘expensive’ or ‘very expensive’, and only 16.3% of responses thought that Robinson provided enough affordable rooms. The issues facing students can be divided into four non-exhaustive categories: Rent, Remote learning, Job security and Welfare.

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Rent

Robinson college already has one of the highest rents in all of Cambridge, 88.9% of students said rent at Robinson was either ‘expensive’ or ‘very expensive’, and 50% said they believed there should have been a temporary cut in the rent this year. The provision of the COVID-19 hardship fund has aided some students but, in the face of mass economic disruption for families and students of Robinson college, wider change is needed. International students who had to quarantine before arrival in Michaelmas were forced to pay holiday rent; students who tested positive for COVID-19 at the end of term were expected to pay £18.50 a night for their government-mandated quarantine. Robinson is trying to charge students over £500 for the Easter vacation despite students being legally forced to stay. No student should be priced out of the best COVID practice.

“Robinson rent is insanely high compared to other colleges. The college's access statistics are very poor and this is likely a key part of the problem.”

“It’s almost impossible to get a value room even if you specifically ask. The cheapest room available to me costs almost double the cheapest room at some other colleges.”

“If I had really known how much more expensive Robinson rent is than the rest of the University, I don't think I would have applied here”

Remote Learning

Robinson college lacks the facilities that many other colleges have, meaning having to study in college spaces rather than at home profoundly affected many Robinson students in Michaelmas term. The number of international students staying over the Christmas holidays could have been prevented, had the University given them the option to work remotely in the first place. The International Students’ Campaign open letter asking for Leave to Work Away received 440+ signatures over the summer, but was ignored by University management and dismissed by the Vice-Chancellor in his most recent online open meeting. While we understand that the mandate to ‘keep term’ is a university-wide one, Robinson should still be lobbying the University to allow all students to study remotely in Easter term if they so wish. Robinson should also not enforce or discipline students who do not keep term during the pandemic period, a precedent set by Homerton in Michaelmas term.

"As a mentally and physically disabled student with a difficult home life, I feel completely abandoned by the college and this pandemic has left me with the impression that the college does not care about my welfare.

College management seem to think of the tutor system as a fix-all but fundamentally a tutor is not an adequate substitute for a mental health professional.”

“There needs to be a full time member of staff available solely for students dealing with mental health crises.”

Job Security

Although the staff at Robinson college have faced no redundancies yet, there have been huge shifts in work schedules and a disruptive removal of overtime. We are not concerned about redundancies in Robinson, but instead about the treatment of staff - many staff members’ overall income for the year will be far lower than previous years due to lack of overtime, and many have been given weekend hours or other unwanted work schedules without any choice. On top of this, the ‘Christmas bonus’ given to staff each year that has been used as a justification for low wages year-round, has not been given out. Of course, the college has faced huge financial strain in the face of the pandemic, but there is a stark disparity in the way it has treated low vs high paid staff.

“There is such a huge divide between how Robinson has treated its management and its maintenance staff during the pandemic. Even just talking to my bedder or to staff I see around, I know that their hours have been changed and overtime removed - it's completely unfair.”

"Robinson's endowment is in the millions, I don't think it's unreasonable to ask that a wealthy organisation attempts to absorb some of the economic shock we're living through right now, rather than passing it onto low-paid workers.”

Welfare

Robinson college has needed to improve its welfare provisions for a long time, and this is a view that management has been vocal about wanting to work on. There is a shared awareness of the improvements needed, but the pandemic has just exacerbated the issues faced by students, meaning the continued lack of action from management

The college nurse, often pointed to as the main source of support for students dealing with mental health crises during term, was not physically present for the whole of Michaelmas term due to her own need to isolate at home. Welfare provisions were not highlighted to students in her absence, and no physical replacement was available. With current waiting times of 5+ weeks, access to the University Counselling Service is limited, making one day a week for the college counsellor inadequate.

88.9% of students said they believed students should not be made to keep term.

“I was forced to come back to college despite having entirely online term, in a place where tough rules were imposed upon my living conditions and I was living in a household with strangers, but still paying the same amount as before.”

“[Keeping term] is ridiculous and outdated, and puts students at risk this year.”

In light of these four issues, the rent strikers pledge to withhold their rent until the demands listed below are met.

Robinson College commit to a 30% rent reduction for the entire 2020/21 academic year and a permanent 10% rent reduction.

Robinson College and affiliated entities take no disciplinary action against rent strikers, including fines or charging interest for delayed rent payments.

We demand rent rebates for those in residence over vacation periods during the pandemic. The college should not profit from students following government guidance in the interest of public health.

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students have already signed the Open Letter

This rent strike is about more than rent and Cambridge University. This is resistance to the entire marketised higher education system which runs universities as businesses, extracting rent and fees from student ‘customers’.

We don’t just rent strike for ourselves. We rent strike to protect the jobs and livelihoods of workers across the University and Colleges. Mass redundancies are taking place at several colleges, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Assessment, and Cambridge Museums. Their fight is our fight. We all lose out in a system where staff are undervalued, overworked and underpaid: therefore we must fight for the collective rights of the students and workers.

Signing the open letter is an act of solidarity, not a commitment to striking. Anyone can sign the open letter, there are no possible repercussions from the college.

We, the undersigned, show support for the above demands and solidarity with the Rent Strikers in Robinson college.

Robinson Students
1. Daisy Thomas, 2nd Year, RCSA Vice-President 2019-2020
2. Scarlett Stevens, 2nd Year, RCSA Academic Affairs Officer 2019-2020
3. Alex Lindsay, 2nd Year, Independent College Councillor 2020-2021
4. Jazal Babar, 2nd Year
5. Matthew Brickell, 4th Year, RCSA Treasurer 2018-2019
6. Max Simmonds, 2nd Year
7. Trisha Abass, 2nd Year, RCSA BME Officer 2019-2020
8. Jack Lawrence, 2nd Year
9. Sebastian Carandini, 2nd Year
10. Sam DeMarco, 2nd Year
11. Emily Morley, 2nd Year
12. Maya Dharampal-Hornby, 2nd Year, RCSA Welfare Officer 2020-2020
13. Hendrikje Dorussen, 1st Year
14. Hannah Beresford, 1st Year
15. Charlotte Wilson, 1st Year
16. Claudia Harris, 2nd Year
17. Amelia Hills, 4th Year
18. Bathsheba Lockwood Brook, 4th Year
19. Ayni Abdi, 1st Year
20. Owen Dowling, 3rd Year
21. Zana Mody, 2nd Year
22. Phoebe Hills, 4th Year
23. Percy Verity, 2nd Year
24. Kasia Pendlebury, 2nd Year
25. Jago Wainwright, 1st Year
26. Gordon Cogan Sivarajan, 1st Year
27. András Droppa, 1st Year
28. Ilana Cope, 1st Year, RCSA Catering and Amenities Officer 2020-2021
29. Rachel Orrell, 2nd Year
30. Emily Smyth, 1st Year
31. Navya More, 3rd Year
32. Blane Jones, 3rd Year
33. Gabriel Venter, 3rd Year
34. Toby Stinson, 3rd Year
35. Gareth Scourfield, 2nd Year, RCSA Communications Officer 2020-2021
36. Zak Kooros, 2nd Year
37. Tristan Langlade, 3rd Year
38. Tilly Mattich, 1st Year
39. Phoebe Elliott, 1st Year
40. Callum Hobbis, 2nd Year
41. Keshav Sivakumar, 2nd Year
42. Sophia Kjeldbjerg, 2nd Year, RCSA Overseas Officer 2019-2020
43. Max Fryer, 2nd Year
44. Ilja Čaikovskis, 2nd Year
45. Catherine Funnell, 2nd Year
46. Sophie Howes, 1st Year
47. Juliette Kennedy, 2nd Year
48. Grace Reed, 2nd Year
49. D Ch, 3rd Year
50. Niall Dilucia, PhD Candidate in History Year, Robinson MCR LGBTQ+ and Male Welfare Officer
51. Samuel Williams, 3rd Year
52. David Rennie, 4th Year
53. Joe Brown, 3rd Year
54. Eleanor Thornton, 1st Year
55. Dan Luo, 2nd Year
56. Tarush Bansal, 2nd Year
57. Liam Webb, Post-Graduate
58. Annabelle Lee, 3rd Year
59. Jonathan Roessler, MPhil Intellectual History, MCR Green Officer 2020-2021
60. Andrew O'Hagan, 2nd Year
61. James Millar, 1st Year
62. Tolu Akingbade, Postgraduate
63. Louis Davies, 3rd Year, RCSA Access Officer 2019-2020
64. Beth Budgen, 2nd Year, RCSA Green Officer 2020-2021
65. Roisin Kennan, 3rd Year, RCSA Women's Officer 2019-2020
66. Luke Wilkinson, 3rd Year
67. Isobel Lovegrove, 2nd Year
68. Hilary Patankar, 2nd Year
69. Coco Khullar, 1st Year
70. Tallulah Kelly, 1st Year
71. Harriet Crisp, 4th Year
72. Stanley Evans, 2nd Year
73. Aravind Prabhakaran, 2nd Year
74. Rory Cardy, 4th Year
76. Maruf Sarkar, 2nd Year
77. Tom Hammond, 4th Year
78. Clara Bayley, 4th Year
79. Paarbrahm Singh, 3rd Year

Updated on 06.05.2021 at 23.19

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