When do you think the strikes will be?

[JasminaPashmina]

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

Before Christmas by chance?

At my institution several people are asking the University not to deduct pay from striking staff or to only deduct half of what they should be deducting in recognition of how hard everyone's now working to teach online.

Yes, I hope that if people pull together now that the universities can be lenient about strike deductions. I believe that KCL has already agreed to this in return for the final two days of strike timetabled for this week being called off.

The USS has also reported itself to the pension regulator because it is in breach of its covenant due to the slump in the stock market. It is likely to require higher contributions to keep running.

It will be interesting to see the outcome of all this but I think it is abundantly clear that the whole industrial action was totally misguided and has left people in much worse situations than would have been the case otherwise. I hope members aren’t as ready to hand a blank slate to the union in the future.

Nobody should be treated unfairly for taking lawful industrial action but I’m actually not so sure that excessive leniency is the way forward. Why should those who withheld their labour and can claim on the strike fund get extra money? UCU is showing no interest in finding a way to work with employers in the crisis. The direction of travel regarding covid has been clear for about 2 weeks, and UCU should have called off last week’s strikes. Our students will have to write off an entire term. UCU only paid lip service to their needs. Sorry, but I’d like to see more good Will from the union.

I did not go on strike, went to work, did not spend time at home with my research, got dirty looks from colleagues and now they want to be paid while not working? Sorry but that’s not reasonable, especially when workers on minimum wage (including many students) are losing jobs.

To be fair to the UCU, I think it would have been difficult to predict that the end of the strike would coincide with the covid-19 crisis - ok by the time the 2020 strikes were announced, the epidemic was a thing in China already, but I think most of us just looked the other way and pretended this wasn't going to have a significant impact.
I am more concerned that union leaders were still looking the other way by Wednesday-Thursday last week, when it became evident that this wasn't going to be a matter of quarantining yourself for a few days if you had symptoms. Their only concern was that if universities closed people wouldn't be able to get their ballots ffs.
Alex Douglas has repeatedly warned (and demonstrated) that there's a very real possibility more money for pensions results in less money to end precarity, and I think this is the time where it will be absolutely clear to everyone. As someone with a permanent, relatively senior job and in USS, I think the Union's focus for the foreseeable should be helping precarious workers and avoiding redundancies.

@Daca I can see the sentiment of people asking for strike deductions to be cancelled in recognition of hard work people are putting in now but I feel the same as you.

I worked as normal throughout the strike and am now working just as hard as everyone else to get all my material changed/online. Those people who did no work during the strikes (because they were on strike) and are now working just as hard as everyone else are now expected to be paid for the time they had 'off'. Strange and unfair.

Moreover, this is how academia works isn't it, flexibly with massive pressure at some periods and less pressure at others. The fact we're all having to work super hard to change our material is an extraordinary pressure point and nothing to do with the strike. We need to put in extra work now because of an external pressure so we are, we do the same with grant or paper deadlines.

I was thinking more in terms of people maybe struggling to feed families etc but I think the UCU strike fund should be emptied in the first instance to pay striking workers.

Extraordinary lack of leadership from UCU at the moment. Jo Grady is tweeting heart gifs but no updating about how this crisis affects industrial action. I don’t think she’s mentioned the USS problems as a result of the stock market crash.

I also totally agree that the fallout from the covid crisis can not be blamed on UCU in any way but they were very slow to respond when last week, many institutions were moving teaching online. That would have been a good time to call off action. I’m not even sure if there is coordinated effort on this because some people at QMUL reckon they’re still on strike today whereas others at KCL think it’s been called off.

Utter shambles to be honest. Universities will suffer hugely as a result, the impending recession will hit pensions and jobs will be axed. I think a 3% pay rise and 8% pension contributions is right at the bottom of the list of priorities.

Fair enough, it was not possible to predict that universities would close until the lockdown in Italy - which began, however, on 10 March, over a week ago.

As for now, how can you be on strike today in this kind of situation? I just think it’s irresponsible.

As for getting extra special treatment because you’re working so hard now ... it’s a bit entitled, isn’t it? Guarding against future job losses should be the priority now, and building bridges with employers.

Agree that it’s totally irresponsible. I’m surprised more people aren’t holding UCU to account.

This tweet from Jo Grady, bragging that the union was well ahead of the government in predicting the effects of coronavirus, is nothing short of ludicrous: twitter.com/DrJoGrady/status/1239655790182621189

She’s so ridiculous. It’s like a parody. If she had predicted it, how come it took until the end of last week for her to cancel pickers and she was still telling people to push on with the strikes despite the country being in crisis where industrial action would be totally inappropriate. Can you imagine if NHS workers announced a strike now?

Yes, Pota, like some sort of cartoon villain. And yes, I wish more UCU members would challenge her openly.

But I note that these days her tweets don’t seem to find much resonance.

I have little sympathy with the argument that striking staff should be paid because of the hard work to get everything online now. We are all doing that, not just those who were on strike. So let the strike fund pick that up, and universities concentrate on making sure that casual workers and low paid staff will be secure in these difficult times. This crisis will cost the sector hundreds of millions.

I am honestly tempted to cancel my membership (again, I cancelled it and then rejoined for some reason which is lost in the mists of time, I think because my local branch are actually fairly sensible people and you can see the changes which have come about from their work, but even they were behind the curve on this latest strike, ie carrying on).

My university has announced that it expects to lose £30 million as a result of this pandemic. I can’t see how there won’t be redundancies. Demanding pay rises and additional employer’s pension contributions at this time is lunacy. As for expecting to be paid whilst striking, words fail me.

My local branch is also good, which makes me stay.

My university has announced that it expects to lose £30 million as a result of this pandemic.

Last week I was in senior management meetings discussing financial forecasts, with similar catastrophic losses. The stock market was crashing, hence USS in breach of covenant.

Outside the building strikers were demanding pay rises and pension contributions.

Australian universities are already posting huge losses after the Chinese students did not start their courses in the new academic year in January. UK universities are just starting to feel their losses as international students suspend studies and don't pay their remaining fees.

That is the same figure I heard where I am.

Yes, it is madness. I saw that one of the lead negotiators for the USS dispute, Sam Marsh, referred to the USS response to the stock market crash as ‘scaremongering’ and other academics (including the one above who suggested that people leave and set up their own DB scheme) have said that the market will ‘bounce back’ and that this is giving the employers ‘what they want’.

It does concern me that the people tasked with negotiating for the union appear unable to grasp basic economic facts. Who chooses negotiators? Why are they unpaid? I feel that this reduces their accountability and means people can just say ‘oh they tried- don’t be mean’. Surely a union that can pay Jo Grady an enormous salary can afford to pay properly paid negotiators who are experts in their area?

The point is that the universities are facing huge financial challenges, it will have an inevitable impact on staffing, yet these idiots seem to think that the universities are ‘loving’ this crisis and using it as an excuse. I don’t envy the task of senior management at the moment to be honest and the accusation that they are using this as some excuse to deny ‘reasonable’ demands is beyond ludicrous.

These are Jo Grady’s thoughts on pension crises. Manufactured to benefit the elite apparently. She’s said herself that she thinks final salary schemes are viable. I mean, I can’t see anything unviable about a person working for around 35 years, contributing about 25% of salary and then living for up to 30 years on half their final salary. Not at all unrealistic 🙄

This is a very badly written abstract. I can’t believe that the person who produced this makes 100K+ per year.
Also: discourse, rhetoric, has she actually looked at facts? Numbers? There is a real debate to be had about pensions provision in ageing societies, retirement age, the wisdom of capital-backed (instead of tax-funded) pensions and indeed also neoliberalism.
A little bit naughty of you, Pota, to dig this out when we‘re actually going through a real crisis ... ;-)

I’m in self-isolation! I have time on my hands (when I’m not answering student emails and uploading online teaching materials)! It’s open access so if I get truly bored, I might start reading it but I haven’t reached that stage yet.

Increasingly seeing this sort of thing:

twitter.com/nadineelenany/status/1240913605429735424?s=21

I don’t think there is any proposal to bring anything to the table here, like an assurance of not taking part in strike action for a certain period after the crisis. The UCU stance is still a reballot on strikes before June. I doubt many employers will be keen to offer full pay for strike action, although some might be prepared to postpone or spread deductions. But they need to empty out the union’s strike fund first. It was the union who led them into the position they now find themselves in and the union could have called it off earlier, saving many of them a substantial amount of money that they desperately need now.

@Daca I think the whole "everything is socially constructed" line is prominent these days in UCU... and it's not great at a time where a very real, not-socially-constructed virus is doing the rounds...

That is making my blood boil. Why should someone be paid for going on strike? I have had significant extra work because of the strike while they’ve been posturing on the picket line and sloganeering on Twitter. Grrr.