The Committee of the University of Exeter UCU Branch stands beside our students who have occupied the Peter Chalk Centre since the evening of Thursday 28th of November. Together, staff and students are challenging the marketisation of education, and are defending a better deal for decent pay and conditions and existing pension rights. Together we want to create an education system that is funded, accessible and lifelong, a system that reflects the needs of modern society. We support our students’ statement demanding the University of Exeter to recognise the seriousness of the situation, agreeing to reopen negotiations on casualisation, workload and pay inequality and put pressure on USS to implement all of the recommendations of the JEP, in line with a more democratic, open and caring decision making structure for the University, and the higher education system more broadly. Finally, we defend our students’ rights to protest, just as we thank them for supporting our picketing. Together we are making a statement in defence of a shared vision for higher education.