The Irish Federation of University Teachers (IFUT) has expressed its full support for nurses in their current industrial dispute. 

IFUT members understand only too well the consequences of austerity measures that led to underpaid workers, demoralised staff and devaluation of teaching and learning. 

We stand, therefore, in absolute solidarity with the 35,000 nurses in their current dispute.  Nurses are committed, conscientious workers, who have been driven to this action by ongoing management intransigence.  

In the same way that university staff fight for our rights to better serve the students we teach, nurses are fighting in order to give the best possible care to the most vulnerable in our society.

Over the past number of years, the growing casualisation of work and the attendant uncertainty and erosion of workers’ rights in the higher education sector has led to more awareness by university workers of how their rights are frequently violated and has increased membership numbers in IFUT.

While the remit of our work is obviously different to that of nurses, university teachers and other academic staff understand very clearly the suffering caused when workers’ contributions are not valued or acknowledged.