Sandwich students

THOUSANDS of students in Britain's universities are forced to live on sandwiches and take exhausting part - time jobs because of the erosion of grants by inflation.

And the crisis will get worse in October when, according to a National Union of Students' survey, undergraduates at 80 per cent of univerLucas men winning support LUCAS WORKERS on strike at the company's Burnley plant are calling for sympathy action from other parts of the multi-million pound Lucas! empire. The 1,700 strikers have already won port from the Lucas Aerospace. Combined Stewards' Committee, which represents 14,000 and manual workers throughout the country.

The three-week-old by the Amalgamated and the Sheet Metal the company refused to pay in support of a pay claim.

Burnley workers are paid £6 to f7 a week less than those elsewhere in the aerospace division; they are campaigning to have this disparity eliminated.

The Combined Shop Stewards' Committee said:

'We accept in the rest of the combine that the Burnley workers' increase should be greater than ours since their wages are so appallingly low. We will not stand by and see the company victimize them' The company has offered Burnley workers • the same increase as that offered to other plants.

Dan Conroy, chief shop steward of the Lucas aerospace factories at Burnley said:

"This statement of action from the Combined Shop Stewards' Committee is most welcome as it will give fresh heart to the men at Burnley' University rent strikes planned as rises knock grants sities will face massive rises in halls of residence fees.

Already ten student

unions plan rent strikes at the beginning of next term and NUS President Digby Jacks told a London press conference yesterday expected the strikes to supShop staff strike at Burnley-made official Union of Engineering Workers Workers' Union-started when employees working-to-rule LEN ELE PAPERBACKS CENTRE 28 Charlotte St London W1 to almost all universities.

£240 of the total student grant of £445 is set aside for rent, but rises in hall fees will mean that 78 per cent of students living-in will face extra charges which must be taken from their food,, clothes and book allocation.

At Birmingham, Keele, Bristol and Manchester students will pay up to £317 a year—£77 more than the rent element included in their grants.

Although this rose by 3.5 per cent last year, hall fees vent up by 6 per cent and even heavier increases are expected in 1972-1973.

Despite pleas from all vice-Chancellors, the Tory government has refused to increase grants further.

Jacks told reporters the NUS hoped the autumn rent strikes would encourage universities to hold down increases, but he warned that the NUS conference could recommend all-out action for higher grants if the situation did. not improve.

He added that the plight LEST ES ISSA PERIODI of thousands of students was far worse than even their survey showed.

Many of them, he said, never received their parents' contributions to university grants and others at colleges of further education lived from hand to mouth on discretionary awards.

Mel Ingham, a 30-yearold ex-lorry driver studying German at the University of Surrey, Guildford, where • rent strike is planned for October, said that students needed a minimum of £l per day for food but many had only rent.

He said: 'We have cases where students are forced to live on sandwiches and on top of their studies help out in local coffee bars to get extra money. - We have been caught up completely by inflation. Food has gone up and the price of imported textbooks has risen by 25 per cent after the floating of the f' Mr Ingham claimed that factory closures and unemployment made it impossible for many students to supplement their grants with holiday jobs.

Nearly 40 per cent of undergraduates live-in and Jacks said the NUS would be pressing the government again to change its mind about raising grants: