When do you think the strikes will be?

[JasminaPashmina]

Just that - when do you think the strikes will happen?

Before Christmas by chance?

Okay, this is pretty worrying. I just saw on twitter that a legal academic has posted that the law relating to unfair dismissal for strike action only applies for 12 weeks after the start of the action.

So, if you’re fired within the 12 week period, your dismissal is automatically unfair. After the period, your dismissal may be unfair but that depends on each case. 12 weeks from the start of the action (on 25 Nov) is 17 Feb. UCU have totally failed to inform staff going on strike of the fact that their employment rights are compromised due to the (stupid) way UCU has structured the dispute. It may be largely theoretical as the employers probably wouldn’t bother sacking people, but it means that the UCU is being dishonest when making out that people will have the full protection of employment laws when they won’t.

Have posted screenshot of government guidance. As I said, seems unlikely it would happen but it is still a risk. Idiots.

For those of you still in UCU here's a great link combining Mike Otsuka's advice (on voting UCU Left off) and ucu4af's (listing candidates who support academic freedom).

Forgot the link! nms.kcl.ac.uk/john.armstrong/misc/ucu-nec-2020.html

I'm really glad Eurig Scandrett is running.

Everyone has seemed to be too busy to think about voting but maybe those striking will have time now to check they received their voting papers etc.

Struggling to muster enthusiasm for the actual strike.

Returning back to the topic of teach-outs from many, many pages back. I came across this yesterday

Leaving this there for your own conclusions.

Oh wow, Jasmina. That ones pretty blatant. It’s a funded research project and they’re putting on an event and publicising it on twitter. But they’re also calling people at non-striking unis scabs for promoting their events and saying it breaches the digital picket.

Okay well, they can’t say they weren’t warned. When this strike turns out to be as pointless as the November one, maybe there’ll be more critical thinking of what exactly went wrong, although I won’t hold my breath.

I also saw some v irritating people have a huge argument with some others about how ‘the picket line is a pedagogic space’ and nobody should be moaning about teaching time being lost because there was so much education to gain from chatting to other strikers. Those teaching maths said it doesn’t quite work like that, after which they were accused of being elitist. I honestly feel like sticking my head in a microwave with academia sometimes. The biggest myth about it is that it’s full of intelligent critical thinkers. It’s really not.

Are you trying to keep the fact you’re not striking private? I had to tell a colleague (as we team teach a module). She has now announced it to the rest of the department—there was absolutely no need to do this. As far as I know, I’m the only one not striking and there’s very strong support for the union in the department. I was hoping to fly under the radar, but obviously not now 🙄

That’s really out of order historyrocks. There seem to be a lot of petty and vindictive people in this strike. I haven’t been in yet but I will be tomorrow. If anyone asks me I will just say that I am no longer a UCU member. I get the feeling this ones a bit of a damp squib anyway. Very few people on the official picket lines I saw on twitter (often fewer than 10, bearing in mind most places only have about 6 official pickets). I guess the weather doesn’t help really.

Hi historyrocks, it’s probably unavoidable that you will be ‘outed’ in a very unionised department. But please note that it’s intimidation to ostracise a member of staff because of her decision not to take industrial action. I’m in a very similar position. I’ve told a couple of colleagues about my decision not to strike, as well as my head of department (but kept it factual). There will be some fall-out but I don’t care. I fully accept my colleagues’ right to strike, and they can extend me the same courtesy. If you think your colleague behaved badly, you can raise it with your head of department because it’s actually not OK (the intention is to exert pressure on you and others - ‘look what happens if you don’t join in’). Academic gossip, however, comes with the territory.

Crossed the picket today and it was okay as there weren’t many people on it.
Oh and today in ridiculous teach-outs I saw one that is basically a book-launch of an academic’s new book with three discussants from his dept. Okay then.

There was actually 4 other people in work today. Including the person who told everyone I’m striking .

That’s hilarious, historyrocks. I think I’m the only one in my Dept. but I’m quite sure most of my colleagues are quietly getting on with their research. They certainly weren’t on the picket line this morning. What a waste of union resources this strike is turning out to be ...

Name changed for this one, I was sent this from a contact at Kent ucu, apparently this is what they're currently debating.

docs.google.com/document/d/15ehzvwPnOLyM_HuZRDDKB4m5VWkXT2XcVXzSphSQsSU/edit

@historyrocks That was a shit way to behave but not surprising.
I'm also in a very unionised department and would expect some comment about not striking but to share to your whole department is really shit. And then turn up at work is mind-boggling.

@Daca I very, very strongly suspect that's what is happening in my heavily unionised department. Those people who'd normally be tweeting noisily about either their research or their comradeship are startlingly quiet

I saw the whole picket-line-as-a-pedagogical-space discussion @Pota2 Absolutely bonkers. I understand the sentiment that humanities and social science students could learn lots through standing on the picket lines, sharing ideas discussing comradeship, solidarity, worker movements etc., students who've opted to go to university to learn about particle physics don't stand to (and don't fucking want to) learn much at all.
This, if anything, seems elitist to me - the idea that all students are at university to ponce around dabbling in all sorts of different and radical disciplines and ideas rather than being there to get a set of skills and experiences to take straight into the corporate graduate job market.

Endearing to see all the woke crowd call Kathleen Stock a scab for publicizing a paper during the strike: twitter.com/Docstockk/status/1231895714298499072

I am not sure if Stock is in UCU but if I was in her position I would have ended my membership ages ago, as it would be completely useless in case of problems. Why Stock should respect a strike called by a union that has demonstrated to be completely hostile to her and unconcerned about her academic freedom, is beyond me.

It’s devastatingly dumb and mean-spirited. I think the trouble is that not all UCU branches are the same. I think she has said previously that her local branch did support her. I don’t think these wokesters are died in the wool unionists, it’s just a convenient stick to beat somebody with.

Honestly I completely agree with @Pota2's comment earlier that there's a dearth of critical thinkers in academia... it rather resembles a high school corridor most of the time...

I find the hypocrisy a bit more grating than the lack of critical thinking (which sometimes actually is a lack of intellectual honesty).

Oh my gosh, yes I saw that. Why hypocritical bullies. Kathleen said she has been off campus and thought the strike was the last three days of the week. She tweeted one article presumably written before the strike. And as you say, why the hell should she show them solidarity anyway after how they have treated her.

Honestly the whole digital picket is ludicrous anyway. If you’re not striking, observing a digital picket has fuck all impact on your employer anyway so it makes no difference. All it seems to be is an excuse for a load of horrible school bully types to pile on to people they don’t like. Makes me feel sick.

I know for a fact that there are many people who are pretending to strike by working at home and some of them are especially vocal about the digital picket and were last time round too. Some of them use excuses like being on a research only contract and claiming that that makes striking meaningless for them. Such tosh and they have no business having a go at Kathleen. Every day I’m so happy i left that gang of bullies.

Oh and did you see the DM article with a big pic of Jo Grady sipping champagne on a train? Apparently the UCU won’t disclose her official salary but Sally Hunts final salary was £170k and £25k in benefits according to the article. Wow.

www.google.com/amp/s/www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8033321/amp/Meet-union-bosses-leading-charge-demanding-better-wages-lecturers.html

To be fair to her, it was cava

Meh, cava out of a plastic cup is alright by me, it’s the juicy fact that UCU won’t disclose Grady’s exact salary that’s more interesting! Nice one, DM ... Transparency! I’ll be interested to read the comments under that article in a few hours.

I agree that the digital picket line is purely performative although to be fair I don't think UCU is endorsing it officially - as you say it sounds like something people came up with so that they could bully others. I've even seen people tweeting links to non-academic articles (like London Review of Books and the like) saying that the article looks very interesting but they won't be reading it until after the strikes because it's connected in some way to their own area of research... oh ffs.

The digital picket line is a nice example for the category ‘hell that humans make for themselves’ and the self-congratulatory back-slapping makes it even sillier.

What is truly disturbing are the PhD students who are joining in, trying to admonish senior academics for perceived infractions. They think that because they are striking on their hourly paid graduate teaching contracts (money they often receive on top of a PhD student bursary) they are in the same position as lecturers who are actually sacrificing a month of their annual income. When it is then suggested to said PhD students that they should give up a portion of their bursary, the reaction is absolute indignation! This is a structural issue and unless UCU gives off graduate students into a separate union, these problems will continue.

I kind of get the idea behind the digital picket line because a great deal of promotion of universities is done via Twitter through people promoting their brilliant grants, articles etc. so it's kind of free promotion for universities about the great stuff they've got going on.

However this isn't the reality of how Twitter is used by academics (because people post critical stuff and also behind it's like shouting into a bin bag given most academics are only following/followed by other academics who can see through the bullshit).

A true digital picket would, I think, be all university staff completely staying off Twitter for the whole of the strike period. Not tweeting about work or the strike, just silent. The irony is, of course, that many people are tweeting about teach-outs during the strike which, as I've said above, plays right into universities' hands because many teach-outs look and sound amazing so it's just more free advertising for universities. I've made this point above - teach-outs boil my piss.

But, yes, basically, performative, bullying nonsense.

That article on Grady is very interesting. I have many issues with the DM obviously and I feel slightly uncomfortable with their semi-sexist presentation of Grady (e.g. calling her 'Miss' when she's 'Dr') but you're absolutely right that there needs to be transparency in all of this.

On a side note, I was part of an email chain yesterday with 7 people (including me) involved in back-and-forth emails. Five out of the seven of us had 'I am on strike auto-replies on'. Absolutely being used as quasi-research leave.

And someone's saying that Stock tweeting on strike days is "unbelievably offensive"... some people seem to lead incredibly sheltered lives, don't they?