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).

How is everyone getting on? I’m striking but 14 days is really tough.

Hanging in there!

Of course, while I am on strike I've still been working on my research/ writing at home (I'm in the humanities). I consider this work 'my work' anyway, rather than for my institution, and I had a big deadline yesterday that I couldn't not meet. I know that's a bit self-defeating, to work when I'm not getting paid, but I'd really be spiting myself if I fell behind on the various publications I'm working on at the moment, that all have imminent deadlines.

But, I've been resolute in ignoring institutional work emails, etc. To the point that I missed out on a big funding bid meeting today and I'm worried I'm going to get taken off the bid (I'm a Co-I)... It would suck if that happens.

Glad I’m not alone. Don’t know a single person who isn’t doing some academic work at home while not doing departmental work.

I’m not doing any work whatsoever.

You’re a better woman than me and I mean that genuinely.

I just decided to draw my own boundaries. I’m not giving this job my soul when the employers clearly don’t give a toss about us and would replace us in a heartbeat if we dropped dead. If they didn’t try to make our colleagues absorb our workload first, of course.

no, they really don’t give a toss. I’ve learnt that to my cost. Really feel for younger colleagues who don’t even have the luxury of having had some good years in this profession.

I'm marking but ignoring my email, except a few from students. I've had a couple of really stroppy ones from admin staff. One started "Are you going to answer the questions below?". I took great pleasure in inwardly saying "no" and not reading the rest.

My university is now closed because of the weather, so I'm not sure what will happen tomorrow. I'm hopeless at working from home, too easily distracted, but I may have to shut off MN and buckle down.

I have a decision to make as to whether I chuck the whole thing in and become a trailing spouse at the end of this academic year, I did think I would miss it, now I'm really not so sure. A lot will depend on the value of my remaining pension contributions, if they are pitiful I might as well go and enjoy my twilight years!

I'm not reading work email or working on any documents but I have a work FB group to discuss an ongoing project that I've been on quite a lot, plus a few papers linked from Twitter.

Hi everyone,

It was quite nippy in the Frozen North today. We needed an extra body so we made ourselves a Snowman Picket

Have to say that my uni has been very good about this. No problem whatsoever about striking, though the majority isn't unionised. Luckily all the lecturers on the classes I've cancelled are striking so no question of rearranging for us.

It was freezing on our picket line this am. Really freaking cold, but a good mood prevailed. Most people seem to think we should have gone for no exam marking and no admissions work as we really can inflict some damage that way.

I didn't do any marking and didn't deal with any emails. I'm going to do all those tomorrow, but DC's school has announced closure. That means slower work. But actually these few days have been very good, and I'm not even going to stress about not being able to do everything on time, since that is actually not possible, and should not be possible. So I'm going with the flow. It's like you suddenly realise that the world is not going to end if you don't give back homework RIGHT ON THE DOT.

Yep, amazingly cathartic in all sorts of ways to get off the daily grind.

Well this week I have noticed harassment of students by lecturers not to cross the picking line, and jeering and heckling at students who do...

Well, that wasn't me. On the first day of strike I was just asleep. I was a bit shocked just how exhausted I was the minute I stopped ...

We have been sorting out our house - just had a major building project conclude. I've done so much varnishing! It's been great to get away from it all for a bit, though I now have an insanely tight turnaround for edits on a paper. Picket line has been fun, too - we had dancing in the snow!

Wasn't me or anyone I saw on our picket lines.

I think our work email system has just conked out with everyone notifying HR of the strike action...

Well this week I have noticed harassment of students by lecturers not to cross the picking line, and jeering and heckling at students who do...

Absolutely none of that at my place; all very good natured, I'm pleased to say

I think our work email system has just conked out with everyone notifying HR of the strike action...
Apparently our HR web system, where we are supposed to self-report strike action, also gave up!
My one working day till the end of the strike today and I have to write my HoD's reference for my grant (well, you know, draft and provide bullet points...)

Writing references for yourself...does that happen anywhere but academia? I had to write the Head of Department reference for my own promotion. Nobody else seemed to think it was odd.

It is not usual for the applicant to write their own promotion letter in any department I have been in. HoD's reference for grant application - yes, fairly common to give bullet points oneself.

After a massive battle behind the scenes and in public (on Twitter) our university has backed down in its ridiculously harsh stance on 'action short of a strike'. Feels like a bit of a victory.

How is everyone holding up? We are starting to worry about the financial cost of the strike - with two wages, it's already cost us well over £1k -but at the same time, we're feeling pretty firm about continuing next week. It's looking like DH may be the only HoD in the Faculty still on strike, and I'm massively proud of him for holding the line. It may well take us the rest of the year to get back on terms financially after this, but it feels like we are winning.

@whiskyowl

Respect to you and your husband, particularly as a HOD, for standing firm

I will be back on the picket lines again on Monday.

Yes, it's much easier for me than it is for him! He's under all kinds of cultural pressures from other HoDs/the pro-VC. Many of them are operating between two incompatible frameworks: firstly, that of being a union member whose pension is being robbed, and a coworker with others in the same boat; secondly, as being a perceived 'leader' who must speak in the language/behave in the habit of the institution that is doing the robbing, as its proxy. I think only a small part of the latter is actually coming from self-interest; most of it is a kind of ingrained habit and the disciplinary force of a series of perceived expectations, combined with an almost tragically desperate desire to be patted on the head for the job they are doing, to the point that even basic commonsense goes out of the window and they stop even considering whether it might not be advantageous simply to kick the can down the road, or do nothing as a deliberate and strategic tactic. (DH actually had to tell another completely stressed-out HoD and fellow union-member that they could simply choose to stop trying to collate information on who was striking in advance of the strike, since strikers were under no obligation to divulge it, and actually divulging it was counter-productive to the strike). Several people on the picket have talked to me about crossing senior staff also appearing rather dismissive of the strike, as if it's some juvenile and rather idealistically quixotic act, which is also quite telling.

It's all making me wonder even more than I formerly did about the ways in which the culture and language of "leadership" and "professionalism", as well as the habitual nature of managerial jobs, are really just a part of the university-as-market-institution, which cannot be made to sit easily alongside any vision of the university as the repository of non-capitalist, non-market values. And that, really, is at the heart of this whole pensions shamble, too - the universities are acting as investors, wanting to manage risk, yet that behaviour is completely at odds with values of education, scholarship, civic values, morality that makes them distinctive places compared to corporations or companies. The division leads to two completely incompatible halves, and we perhaps have a unique moment in the throes of this crisis to have a good think about which half we want to prevail.