On Monday 2nd March, a group of UoB students, including University of Birmingham Student Workers founder Phoebe and 2020 Guild President candidate Owen (who asked for their surnames not to be published), intercepted Vice-Chancellor David Eastwood and asked him questions regarding his pay, the strikes and the conditions of workers at the University. 

They asked the Vice-Chancellor a series of questions because, owing to the strike action, there will not be a Vice Chancellor’s Question Time scheduled for this academic year. Vice Chancellor’s Question Time is an annual event held at the Guild where students can ask their ‘burning questions’ to Eastwood, and the group told Redbrick that they wanted to ask Eastwood questions. They asked a variety of questions to Eastwood, including ‘how can you justify your £450,000 salary when there’s staff at food banks?’

Eastwood responded by stating that, ‘my salary is nothing to do with me’ and pointed out that this was ‘a matter of public record.’ His salary is decided by the Renumeration Committee and he does not sit on this for discussions regarding his own salary.

The students asked how he responded to the calls for him to resign as chair of the Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS), the academic pension scheme which part of the strike action is over.

Eastwood said ‘I have no intentions of resigning as chair of the USS’ though he is already planning to retire from the position in August.

Asked ‘with International Women’s Day coming up, how do you justify the 19% pay gap?’ Eastwood said that ‘the pay gap, is in fact, narrow,’ continuing ‘we are making significant progress.’

In an extended cut of the video the students follow Eastwood out of the building while continuing to ask him questions.

The students continued to ask questions such as ‘Professor, may I ask why you threaten your staff and students with trespass for entering their own campus?’ as Eastwood walked away. 

The video footage of this encounter, which now has thousands of views, can be found on the Facebook and Twitter page ‘UoB Student-Staff solidarity.’

A student reposted the Facebook video onto the group ‘Fab N’ Fresh’ and the video has received hundreds of likes and a lot of interaction via comments and shares.