Anyone in the UCU?

[Closetlibrarian]

And striking at end of Feb?

I joined UCU after the last strike, so this will be my first. Even though I voted in favour it, I'm now in an utter quandary. I have an absolute monster of a semester coming up and I'm fretting about all the lectures, tutorials, etc, I'll have to cancel as part of the strike.

If you've gone on strike before how did you present it to your students so that they didn't just get really pissed off with you for cancelling lectures (that we're then, according to UCU, not supposed to reschedule)?

Also, how did you mange with the loss of income? I'm the 'breadwinner', so 14 days of strike action is going to massively impact us (i.e. I'm not sure we'll be able to pay our bills).

spring - that is really seriously lovely of you, I feel really moved that someone not in the sector would even consider helping out, it's very kind! I think anyone can donate to the Fighting Fund here www.ucu.org.uk/fightingfund

Thanks for listening to me whine, guys. Glad I'm not the only one, I've been feeling guilty for feeling down.

lechat - you're totally right, the focus has to be on a sustainable retirement. I'm in a similar place to you - no kids (infertility) and even though I know that children aren't a retirement plan, it does make me feel more nervous about older age, especially with regard to loneliness. Having had a period of severe physical illness a while ago, I'm more aware than I used to be that one cannot rely on one's health allowing one to work into one's 80s.

Too many 'ones' in that sentence. I sound like the Queen with a cockney accent!

Thanks Whiskyowl

I'd have a lot more unions but I will let you get on with your discussion!

children aren't a retirement plan

Sadly if you have your children later like we did your children are the opposite of a retirement plan - we will still have to pay expensive school holiday prices if we want to do any travelling!

Though it is true we should, all things being well, have company in our old age, I have at least one colleague with one remaining elderly parent, a waste of space ex-P and an only child with a disability who will never live independently. None of which she planned to have when starting out on either her career or her childbearing path. I feel for her much more than myself in this type of situation - I have a DP with a decent pension himself and though young, my children have nothing that prevents a good prognosis for adult life.

More and all round. I too feel ground down and anxious about it all. Striking is emotionally draining, on top of everything else. Although I support the action wholeheartedly, I was thoroughly glad to get back to work today.

Spring: thank you. I know some early career people who are seriously worried about paying rent so your support will go a long way.

Back to work too - gave two lectures and feel quite exhausted. Back to normal.

Another UUK offer. Seems a lot better... wonder how it’ll go down.

Have people heard about the campaign to resign from external examiner roles? The UCU asks that its members resign from all posts, including PhD examination. While I can see the logic to do this for BA and MA level degrees, it surely cannot be justifiable for PhDs?

I can see on social media a lot of very upset people who are finding their vivas suddenly cancelled. This surely is a really bad idea. Not only is it going to cause inordinate stress to the individual student, who is unlikely to find another examiner easily (it's common for it to take months to find and recruit and timetable the right combination of internal and external), but also it is unlikely to have an effect on the university management at all.

I and some others took advice from local Union who said already fixed ones should go ahead. Don't agree to new ones

My local Union has apparently asked people to cancel PhD vivas that were already arranged. But ultimately it is up to individuals to make those decisions.

There you go user150463 - i was wondering if it was just a rumour. What a horrible way to treat a student about to have a viva.

Very difficult, especially for O/S students who have visa issues and generally can’t work.

I think even the most hardline of union members at my university wouldn't push for cancelling vivas in cases involving students on visas. As somebody wrote above it would have far more effect on the student involved than on university management. I'm not sure anyone is even particularly keeping track of externals pulling out of PhD vivas at my university - I haven't seen this included in spreadsheets.

I'm an external and gearing up to resign. It's not ideal, including because it is counted as an esteem marker internally, so good for annual reviews and promotion. But it will have impact. I wouldn't cancel a PhD viva, no way, tho might reschedule if it fell on a strike day

Fair enough Yogafire. It certainly will have impact if you resign an undergraduate or postgraduate taught external post. I'm aghast at how little we're paid to do what can take days of labour. (I'd also not overestimate how much kudos that brings you with promotions; at least where I am it still comes down to research, teaching and invited lectures, then of course enabling roles taken internally etc.)

For that matter, the last PhD viva I conducted, which was two days' labour plus the best part of a morning and afternoon for the viva itself paid me around £150, if memory serves me right. And they didn't even give us lunch. I bought a sandwich for a fiver on the way home and put it down as expenses, which prompted a wrangle with the administrator on whether this was allowable.

Compare that with a similar role I filled for a Swedish university recently, which will pay me around £1800 for what took me around 2 days. Even after paying my UK tax on it, I feel much better appreciated (and remunerated!)

What do people make of the new UUK proposal?

I just sat down to read all the UCU updates before drafting a response to my UCU branch but thought I'd consult mumsnet first. Guess I'll have to think for myself .

Nothing to consider is there? It's the same as now for another year. There is agreement on the panel with both sides represented equally, and I assume the pension regulator has indicated they'll accept this otherwise it wouldn't be on the table.

It means uncertainty for another year but I think that was always inevitable.

Ha, well yes exactly me cromwell! Our ucu branch has asked for our opinion. I read the latest from sally h and sounds ok but I've been a few steps behind throughout all this and wondered if I'm missing something I should be objecting to...

Way too many unanswered questions. Seems like a PR exercise. Not negotiated by our Union leader but imposed. Not good enough. Nothing more than what we already had plus a vague independent panel to look at valuation.

I resigned my external examiner position but turns out there is a 6 month notice period! Zero effect really!

Think we are going be screwed over here. Non negotiated deal that offers nothing concrete and no plan as to what to do if the valuation says deficit. Biggest militancy ever amongst UCU members just squanered and we will be e-balloted over Easter and likely just concede and we’ll be back in the same situation in a year byt with no appetite for strking because it got us barely nowhere. Bye bye pension.

It's never a good thing for union members when employers want to bypass official negotiations with the union. I don't trust this backdoor "final" offer from UUK at all - it's vague handwavey platitudes, none of which are binding, but could seriously screw us over if UCU members vote in favour of them without details of what they really mean.

Feeling strikey

Steeling myself up to vote. I think I'm going to vote No because the Yes packages are so, so ill defined and I don't want to have to re-gain the students' support over strikes (different lot of students, except they'd be the same ones who were in 2nd year this year).
WIBU to vote No on the simple basis that I want a bit more time off?

PS has anyone got any links to what happens to the OLD pension payments once the scheme changes? (under the various possible outcomes)
I know that I was originally on the final salary scheme due to being an old lag but after that I got confused.