When do you think the strikes will be?

[JasminaPashmina]

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

Before Christmas by chance?

That’s quite shocking actually.

I know, right? I am surprised that there’s not more anger about this. The UCU is using misleading figures and outright lies and we’re having to pay the price of it just because they seem to be spoiling for a fight.

I'm in UCU. I'm already feeling panicked about the strikes...I didn't vote for them, but cannot cross a picket line. I'm a very new academic. A poster above said they were only going to strike on specific days where it's going to hurt. Is that possible? Apologies if it's a stupid question. If I'm teaching three days out of eight strike days, can I just not turn in for those days, and work from home for the rest? Or does it not work like that?

Again, sorry for this. I feel really conflicted.

Kosmo yes, you can decide not to strike on all the days. I think the branch will know who’s striking and who’s not so they might try to put pressure on you to strike for the full period but they can’t force you. Even Jo Grady’s previously biggest cheerleaders are talking about how they can’t afford to strike the whole time and one of them said she was going to do just one day, after previously being all moralistic about the UCU but quickly changed her tune when it was going to hit her in the pocket.

I am seriously pissed off about the lies about the pensions. But I do believe precarious workers deserve support and I will strike for them. I know that for Grady it’s all about the pensions though and I foresee this turning really ugly. I am also not going to be able to strike any further in the new year because I can’t afford to lose any more money and quite frankly I don’t want to waste it just to let some idiot live out her ultimate fantasy.

@Pota2 that’s my thinking I will strike on the first day, to make an impact. Then after that, I’m not sure.... I don’t have much teaching on, so I’m not in the office anyway.

And @KosmoKramerthe only people who will know whether you’re striking will be your HR department. They will send out an email each day asking you whether you are working or not.

You don’t have to tell anyone else. And, as far as I know, the UCU doesn’t operate a policy about scabs or blacklegs.

Thanks Pota and Away! That helps so much. So I could strike on my student facing lecture days, but work from home on the others? Won't the Head of Department know and comment? Or is it all private?

Ah sorry Away, you've already said that no one but HR will know. Honestly, that's so helpful, you have no idea. Thank you.

But do double check. At my place, you don’t have to tell anyone. But you do have to respond to an email from HR asking about whether you were taking strike action and on which days.

We get an email from one of the secretaries asking if we've been on strike. That gets passed to HR. I've no idea whether that's passed to anyone else, eg the Dean

I knew that you can strike for only part the time, but I would worry that just striking on teaching days might be questioned. I guess it depends on whether someone made the effort to check days on strike with someone's teaching timetable.

Thanks for that. I wondered whether teaching only day strikes would be questioned too, but the reality is that I work from home the rest of the week anyway. And if I wasn't striking, I wouldn't cross the picket line. I just know I can't pay January's mortgage at this rate and it's keeping me awake.

Kosmo Just do the days you can muster. As you say, you won’t be crossing the picket. However, beware that your employer might try to reschedule your teaching for a day when you’re not striking and then you would have to cross the picket. But so many are in your boat, me included, and unless you have financial support from elsewhere, what other option do you have?

Some of the hardline people are so unsympathetic though. One of them told me to ‘get extra support then’ when I said I couldn’t afford to strike. Also seen people saying that ‘scabs’ should be thrown out of the union. Typical privileged entitled dicks who can clearly afford to lose pay without their entire life going tits up. Really pisses me off and makes me hate the union.

Thanks for your reply Pota. I'm even more worried now. And it's hard when you can't discuss it with anyone. There's only one other lecturer in my dept in UCU...the rest are Unison, so they're not striking (yet will not cross the picket line). So they're all working from home on full pay 🤷‍♀️ It all confuses me and it's still keeping me awake. Part of me just thinks I should leave the union but then it makes me look like a fool. Gah.

If I'm not in a union can I still strike?

Thanks for raising these issues. I was also wondering if I could only strike on teaching days for maximum impact. The problem with striking on the research days is that I will have to make that time up afterwards. So I lose money I don't have and the university won't even notice. I absolutely hate all this.

Yeah that’s why the strike model has problems when applied to academia as opposed to eg transport or hospitals or school. Often it hits the worker harder than the employer. Last strikes were crippling and didn’t achieve as much as they promised to. Also am unclear what exactly the UCU wants and why strike action needs to be performed right at this minute.

I am going to strike on teaching days and work from home on other days and settle for not crossing the picket line.

@MoodLighting - no, you can't strike if you're not in UCU.

I am going to strike on teaching days and work from home on other days and settle for not crossing the picket line

@Pota2 I think that’s what I’m going to do. Although I actually don’t have any teaching in the strike period. But I won’t schedule the required personal tutorials or supervisions.

But it just hurts us and the students. We really don’t work in the typical industrial structure that makes strikes effective.

And I’ve just come back from an expensive overseas conference costing around £1000 without counting airfare, for which I may only be able to reimbursed a couple of hundred pounds ....

Agh I hope you manage to get the expenses back. Agree that it hurts the students too and it just doesn’t hurt the employer enough. There are other things that could be done such as refusing to take part in REF, refusing to promote the NSS, refusing to apply for research grants that would be more effective. But I think many academics would be reluctant to take action that could damage their own career trajectory (and I can see why).

We’ll see how it goes and how the employer responds.

@GCAcademic that’s wrong - any member of staff san take strike action where there has been a legal ballot and mandate, regardless of union membership or not. Why the6 would is another matter.

Any member of staff san take strike action where there has been a legal ballot and mandate, regardless of union membership or not.

Yes, this is true. And employers cannot take actions against non-union members for striking. However, non-union members would not have the backup support of the union, so if (for example) somebody felt that they were being mistreated directly because of striking they wouldn't have legal support behind them.

However, beware that your employer might try to reschedule your teaching for a day when you’re not striking and then you would have to cross the picket.

You don't have to tell them in advance that you're striking or when so I don't see how they could do this?

@MoodLighting - no, you can't strike if you're not in UCU.

This is not true. From the gov.uk website: “If non-union members go on strike, they are protected from dismissal and have the same rights as union members, as long as the industrial action is lawful.”

I haven’t seen any mention of the strikes on the other boards on MN - it seems to be having much less of an impact (so far) this time round.

I stand corrected!

There has been some brief discussion on a couple of the higher education threads. I imagine though that given that only some universities are striking, and we haven't actually started yet, unaffected people may not be all that aware yet.