When do you think the strikes will be?

[JasminaPashmina]

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

Before Christmas by chance?

I guess we will have to wait and see what this week brings.

But note that the future valuation is part of the discussions/negotiations with UUK/USS this week. And that UCEA requested further negotiations today, presumably with a view to improving on the initial offer.

To me, a strike that was completely disastrous would see no negotiations whatsoever and the employers just sitting it out.

I do think that UCU will fail to win another strike ballot this year, and that might concentrate some minds on HEC.

The point about the valuation is that it hasn’t taken place yet so it will not be possible to reach a long term agreement on the pension now, no matter how much it’s discussed in meetings. The only way you could do that would be if the employers promised to bear the full cost of any increase, no matter what the valuation said. I can’t see that happening because they don’t know what they’re signing up to. It’s writing a blank cheque.

Even if they did make that promise, the increased cost would likely lead to redundancies as it has done in the post-92 sector. That would make it less likely that precarious workers would get permanent posts.

The discussions are about the methodology of the valuation which, as you will recall, was the subject of great controversy in 2018 and one of issues with which JEP concerned itself.

Jasmina, would be v. interested to hear your thoughts on commitment, feel free to start another thread.

I do think there’s a lot of emotional investment in academic work. I can’t conceive of an academic who would refuse to write an important reference for their PhD student because the deadline was on a strike day. And yes, of course, for all the talk of solidarity, most academics very much cling to the ‘great mind’ model of intellectual production. I don’t agree that strike action is pointless, though. The 2018 strikes were very effective. Unfortunately they also brought us our dear leader, Jo ‘cute as hell’ Grady.

It’s not just Grady, though, there are plenty of UCU members who are very invested in using the union as a political platform for ‘progressive’ causes.

@Daca You know, I might just start another thread about 'commitment'

Although I didn't mean to imply I'm not committed to my students, I'll always try and do the best by my students

Interesting thread...
twitter.com/alexxdouglas/status/1234750332963606528

Alex is getting loads of hate for his position. I think he’s totally right though. I think it could massively backfire and hurt the precarious workers because unis might be prompted to do a clearance of casual contract but not create any permanent replacements.

However given that it’s now coming toward the end of the penultimate strike week and no offer in sight, I think all the anger at Alex that he will profit from the strike are a bit misplaced. Reading some of them I am also convinced that many strikers don’t know their arse from their elbow and don’t seem to grasp why this is not a good time to exhaust all your resources on striking when it’s likely a valuation later this year will turn everything upside down anyway. Will people be up for striking then when they have already lost nearly a month of pay?

I think when a new ballot for industrial action is sent out, it could go either way. Either people will vote no (or fail to return the ballot) at the perspective of losing another 22 days pay or more, or they will vote yes in the hopes that a new round of strikes actually achieves something so as to not regard the initial 22 days as lost pay for nothing.

What Alex says about the strike being a sort of religious ritual also completely resonates with me. The idea that, if you care about precarious workers, you should join the strike blindly and not question whether the strike makes sense, because otherwise it means you hate precarious workers... just like in some quarters you are expected to blindly believe that biological sex doesn't exist and if you question this you're a complete transphobe, etc. It's about the one thing you're supposed to do to show that you're on the right side of a cause, even though the connection of that one thing to actually solving the problem might be at best tenuous. Some of the most active people in my department in supporting the strike have absolutely zero qualms with gaining kudoz and promotions through setting up PG programmes which, save for themselves, are 100% staffed by hourly-paid recent PhD graduates who don't have a chance at getting a permanent position with us.

Apparently Princess Anne crossed the picket line at Birkbeck this morning. I guess she hasn't been watching the current series of The Windsors

aridapricot I totally agree. There is a definite totalitarian air about it. They claim to be striking to make things better but if you question what specifically they think the action will achieve, all you get is abuse and sarcastic comments about how you don’t care about the cause and want to throw precarious workers under the bus. It’s such a parallel to the idea that a woman who says that biology is relevant is dangerous and doesn’t deserve a platform anywhere within academia. That is to say, it’s idiotic nonsense.

Like you, I also think that some will vote to continue striking because they’ve already invested so much. It’s like when you keep gambling even though you’re losing. I think many will refuse to strike though. In fact, exhausting strike power now can be devastating. If the valuation in 2020 doesn’t say what UCU wants it to say, there is renewed risk that the employer will push for DC. If at that stage you’ve already pissed off your members and exhausted all of their ability to take action, it might involve capitulation. If that happens, I know exactly where I will direct my anger and I won’t be quick to forgive.

I can’t remember academics openly defying UCU like this and announcing that they are leaving during the strike in Nov/Dec. Is this a sign of serious discontent? And does anyone know when the results of the recent ballot will be out?
Interesting that Alex says nothing about other issues that people here have noted re UCU (no-platforming etc.)

This is very interesting, as someone who works in HR trying to deal with these nebulous and incoherent demands I am afraid I agree with every word in Alex's piece, and the figures calculated by . It is a very odd.

Bottom line: by the best measures of inflation, against a
non-cherry-picked baseline, 5.8% (5.5% + 0.3%) would be necessary &
sufficient to catch up & keep up with inflation. 5.8% is in fact
slightly higher than @ucu's pay demand of RPI (Aug 2019 = 2.6%) + 3% = 5.6%.

Thread showing the calculations behind these figures:

twitter.com/MikeOtsuka/status/1184423781265268736
Link to spreadsheets

drive.google.com/file/d/1Nl5ZVBSe3ivYOj28EbRZBbkUSxoYLrUa/view

@Daca

I can’t remember academics openly defying UCU like this and announcing that they are leaving during the strike in Nov/Dec

^This is a really important point. I don't recall a time ever^ when people have been so openly defying and questioning UCU. I mean I've known colleagues who haven't been in UCU because they're fairly ambivalent about being in a union per se but not because they have particular issues with UCU.
To me its absolutely astonishing that we're seeing this kind of questioning of a union for university staff who are all generally union-leaning-types, that's headed up by a former academic, and which is focused on improving conditions for staff/students. Something has gone seriously, seriously wrong because a union like that should, IMO, have rock solid support/membership.

And, yes, I completely agree about the cult-ish nature when it comes to precarious staff (also I find this with the BME pay issue - not being in the union is evidence that I give no shits about BME pay gap and am, therefore, a massive racist).

Some new figures coming from UCU email this morning - what do people think? Payrise of 3% and pension contributions if 8.4% tabled with employers.

That’s interesting and I am sure that permanently employed workers will happily vote for that. The issue is where does this leave the precarious workers who were at the bottom of the pile in this fight from the start? I mean, sure, call off the fight (and it sounds like a pretty good deal) but is this really the radical change UCU was insisting on? If I was a precarious worker, I’d be very pissed off. At the same time, as a permanent worker, I can see that it’s a good deal.

Grady’s email also indicated that the employers were receptive in principle to the amendments on the other parts of the 4 Fights (casualisation, pay equality, workloads) that UCU were proposing. Guess we will have to see what the concrete offer is.

And what about all the people who have been tweeting about how current academia is intolerable and that they are at breaking point and are doing this for the future generation? Will this really change if we get slightly higher pay and slightly lower contributions?

Plus the pension contribution point will shortly rear its head again when the 2020 valuation comes in.

Bit of a damp squib in that sense although personally I would recoup the money I lost in Nov/Dec through the pay rise. But for me, my salary has never been the big problem with academia and I can’t see how this really helps to tackle the real problems.

I guess the hope is that action on workloads and casualisation will make things better for future generations. I don’t think that’s hard to grasp, is it?

As for the valuation, I’ve said before that part of the negotiations with employers is precisely on how the 2020 and future valuations are conducted, and we are being told that there is significant movement on that as well. Proof will be in the pudding, of course.

The problem is that the other points on the four fights are very vague and non-specific. They are basically promises to make the right noises but I can’t see how it will change anything hugely.

I mean, a commitment to end casualisation could be interpreted by one institution as a decision to fire all its casual staff. Bingo, no more casualisation but at the same time lots of people will be out of work.

But yes I will wait to see concrete offer

The point is that you don’t know what the valuation will say, even if you agree on the methodology. It could still come back showing that higher contributions are needed. That stuff is impossible to negotiate over or predict now.

And if all you’re getting is ‘employers will endeavour to address workload issues’, that means very little. That was what was in the last offer in Jan and it would have actually created more work for branch officers in trying to ensure that universities were complying with vague guidelines.

But I guess that for permanent staff, it was only ever really about the cash to begin with and therefore vagueness for precarious staff is a price that most will be willing to pay to get back to work.

My view is that workload issues have to be resolved at local level. Our sector is well-known for dodgy metrics which I believe would be the result of a general agreement on workloads.

Oh I totally agree that local level is the only way that many of the issues can be resolved. Also, things are not equally bad everywhere. At some places, I do genuinely think there are pretty good practices in place whereas others are disastrous. But a national agreement can never be anything than vague.

Anyway, it seems I was wrong. I thought this was an offer made by the employers. I’ve now seen the text of Grady’s email and it’s actually an offer that has been made by Ucu and hasn’t been accepted yet. If it is accepted, I do think most permanent staff will take it although the difference between 9.1% as offered in Sep and 8.4% that they’re offering now for someone on £45000 is just £18 a month but presumably they won’t really want to think about that.

I do maintain though that if the deal that we come out with is wishy washy vague guidelines on strikes, 1.2% extra in pay above what was offered and 0.7% lower in pension contributions than what was offered, that 22 days of strikes would only have been worth it for those already pretty well off and even then, only just worth it.

That’s if they do accept it.

I am finding this a very interesting thread. My university were not in the last round of strikes but we are in this one. I have been out one day but I can’t afford to do more (I am a single mum) and I do worry about the impact on the students.

It is good to see that I am not the only one with these concerns. I do care a lot about the precarious issue as I did my share of insecure and hourly paid contract before I got my permanent job. I think that if you are in a position to be worrying about the pension situation you are lucky. Many people will have holes in the pension from spending years on hourly paid contracts. I think that it does look like the precarious staff are being used as the face of the campaign but will be thrown under a bus for the pay rise and pension. Most people will struggle to care that some professor will not get a final salary pension.

I have considered joining other unions. I have friends in my institution who are in Unison but I wasn’t sure if they would allow me to join as I am an academic and they are on professional services contracts.

I think you need to check with Unison whether you can join. Some people have joined GMB but I agree with those who have pointed out that collective bargaining ability is weaker if you don’t have a designated union representing the profession. That said, I just can’t be part of UCU anymore so for me it’s a no-brainier. I do care about precarious staff but I am not going to pay £300 a year to be abused and insulted. As Selina Todd said, I can get that for free.

Haven’t seen anything on twitter about any offers made yet. Although I noted that Jo Grady had time to write a letter to the Guardian slating Suzanne Moore but has been too busy to publicly condemn the anti-Semitic abuse that one of her members is being subjected to.