Anyone else not striking?

[goingpearshaped]

I am not in UCU so not striking. Anyone else? I can sense the divide already between those striking and those not in our dept, I really hate this. Agh, what a mess all round.

So were these motions passed or not? I thought the UCU had to throw them out after taking legal advice on the Equality Act 2010.

As for the nonbinary lecturer tweeting about this and their speeches: what a throwback to 2018. It's bullshit bingo: section 28, Stonewall 'research', LGBTQ+ when they actually mean TQ, students 'feel unsafe' ...

The only question I have when reading this: how do you actually 'out' a nonbinary person? The sex of this person is clear from the bio photos. What's the big secret? Not trying to offend but genuinely puzzled.

Ironically the people complaining about "outing" (i.e. safeguarding) trans and NB children are the very ones who would enforce compulsory pronoun declarations at meetings and in email signatures.

There was an article on THES about these motions. The bits that would have involved a breach of the Equality Act were excised before the motions were put.

Seems some more people are waking up to what a complete cock-up UCU has made of all of this: twitter.com/jan_selby/status/1534466977368092674?s=20&t=wzm_H9WBHomzhz4yci4oPQ

Yes, good luck with massively escalating that action. Between costing people thousands and wanting to hound anyone who thinks biology is real, UCU has ensured this year that fewer than ever will vote in a ballot. Why would you? Even if you were unhappy with the pension and conditions, this bunch of clowns won’t make things any better. You’ll be in the same position but with a lot less money.

As the cherry on top, the always lovely Jo Edge informs us that she is now the chair of the equalities committee and that the main thing she cares about is the rights of males to ID as female, so we can look forward to lots more of those illegal motions to drive non-compliant women out with pitchforks.

And she congratulates herself for being elected with no experience of organizing people, but then in the first tweet she says she ran unopposed? 🙄

That prof who is now lamenting the state of UCU has done a fair bit himself to create disunion IIRC. And I don't think Jo Edge ran unopposed because everybody agreed that she would do such a fantastic job. If you're hemorrhaging members and you don't have a clear strategy ... does anyone know when the next General Secretary election is? Might rejoin just to get Grady out.

Interesting thread. I agree that self funded PhDs should not be allowed and that there should be far fewer PhD students in general.

I left academia for a better paid job elsewhere about 5 years ago, and I wonder whether academics realise how poorly PhDs are looked upon outside of academia.

I've heard many jokes from colleagues who have interviewed PhDs about how they are incompetent, have less common sense, that a Phd doesn't mean that you're intelligent etc.

I believe that the problem is the extremely poor standards at universities. As long as you've got money, you can practically buy a PhD. This reflects very poorly in the university's and academics in general when these people leave academia. It really makes a mockery of the whole system.

It should be made very clear to PhD students that a PhD prepares you for very little outside of academia. If anything, it's a hindrance. This may not apply to all subjects, but I would say the vast majority.

interesting @MidnightMeltdown
definitely not my experience in my field - all our units graduate have done extremely well in both academic and industry roles, bar a few who discovered our STEM topic was not what they were "into" and went to careers not requiring PhDs (but as far as I can tell, they are using the translatable skills they gained during the PhD in their professions - e.g. accountancy).

Also - why interview people if their qualifications and skills are derided? I am a bit fed up with the PhD training bashing - it often shows how little understanding there is of the massive shift in developing graduate and postgraduate level attributes and a strong translatable skill base. Again, i m sure some places do this more or less well than others, but still. Fair enough, we can be pragmatic and transparent about the workplace and workplace-based challenges, but ought to defend the training.

It should be made very clear to PhD students that a PhD prepares you for very little outside of academia. If anything, it's a hindrance. This may not apply to all subjects, but I would say the vast majority.

No, this is not true. You sound a bit bitter @MidnightMeltdown - certainly my students don't get their PhDs by "paying." That's in the humanities. And PhD students in STEMM certainly don't get an easy ride. Maybe you had a lax supervisor or did your PhD somewhere that wasn't particularly research-intensive? Even so, those universities still have standards.

Many many industries seek out researchers with PhDs. Oil companies, tech companies, chemistry companies - the list goes on.

@MidnightMeltdown that has absolutely not been my experience. I have a PhD in a hard STEM subject and colleagues in my (completely unrelated field) organisation are frequently interested in my PhD and what it means. As a woman I’ve found that it’s opened doors at the leadership level, and from peers it commands a certain amount of respect. It’s shorthand for the fact that I can plan and get stuff done. Skills are wide ranging, including in things like presenting and making slides. I’d say it’s a really good all-round education. But it hasn’t contributed much to my pay, that’s come through other efforts.

I left academia for a better paid job elsewhere about 5 years ago, and I wonder whether academics realise how poorly PhDs are looked upon outside of academia.

Don't you think that's an over-generalization? My PhD students (STEM subject) are extensively head hunted from outside academia for their skills and typically start on professorial salaries outside academia.

I believe that the problem is the extremely poor standards at universities. As long as you've got money, you can practically buy a PhD.

Again, do you really think that you have enough data across all subject areas to infer this? Self funded PhD students are extremely rare in my area and the minimum requirement even to get shortlisted for a doctoral offer is a strong distinction from a top masters programme. We don't take any students with self funding unless they are at least as strong as students who would be funded with research council scholarships.

Lol

my / my department’s phd students get offered shedloads of money to leave academia and are in huge demand. you are clearly making this up and sound like you have a huge chip on your shoulder

And here we go again . . .

My university didn't strike last time. Am not looking forward to this, esp as a HoD.

If the people who went to the trouble of voting 'no' on the pay and conditions strike action had just not voted, they could have actually prevented the strike they apparently do not want...

If this doesn't bring results, and I can't see how it can on the four fights, it is so nebulous, I wonder what will happen next. On pensions I think there might be some wiggle room for the USS trustees to climb down on the valuation.

I am dreading it. I despise the slogan, UCU Rising. I accidentally managed to switch the live result on while trying to find out the result and remembered how annoying I find Jo Grady.
I would possibly strike on USS. The other ballot is ridiculously nebulous. The other thing is we now seem to go through this every autumn.....

I didn't vote this time for precisely that reason. Can anyone point me to the link to which universities are striking? I keep deleting internal UCU emails because I'm so fed up of them!

My HoD is a strong unionist but has stepped out of this battle as they feel it’s their job to keep things going. Our NSS is historically very good and we are regularly in the top 5 on all league tables, but those things are fragile and we’re in the Humanities, so we’re expecting several really tough years.

Strikes that don’t achieve anything don’t help.

Current UCU Executive really remind me of Rik from the Young Ones.

I refrained from voting at all, for this very reason.

Now thinking about leaving the UCU or strike breaking. Joining another union won’t help me when it comes to crossing a picket line. My colleagues are very enthusiastic on the picket line so it’s going to be awful.

Would be interesting to know what % of academics and PS staff are UCU members. I know that there have been a lot of resignations amongst people I know and posters on here. My university is claiming that the vast majority of colleagues are not UCU members, but it's not clear whether they're including staff who aren't eligible to join UCU.

I wonder if there will be a breakdown by institution this time. Clearly at some institutions UCU is very strong - I would be interested to know how much they influenced the aggregated win. My institution was never going to be borderline, so I was counting on apathy/fatigue elsewhere to temper the vote. That hasn’t worked out!

I am so tired of it all and I’m dreading all the just on the right side of bullying emails that are going to land in my inbox over the next couple of months.

I’m eligible to join the ucu but never have. I’m in my old industry related trade union still. So sorry a lot of this has passed me by…….is it mainly pensions which the ucu are striking about? Because if so I don’t think I’m in the main lecturers pension scheme, I’m in the teachers pension scheme?

Not just pensions, it’s a whole bunch of stuff rolled together (slogan: “Four Fights”) some of which is unachievable without dismantling the whole sector and so is doomed to fail. That’s why a lot of people can’t get behind it and are unwilling to lose a whack of pay for something that isn’t realistic.

It's everywhere striking this time as it was an aggregated ballot, so the mandate applies to all universities who took part in the ballot... My institution is also very militant so I was hoping for a reprieve thanks to less militant places, but no...
I wonder when the strike dates will be. This generation of students have really had it tough with strikes, covid, and Brexit (I appreciate that latter may be a local problem to me as our students travel, but still). And I can't see any tangible achievement at all in the round of strikes in 2019/20 or 2021/2. I was tempted to tweet and ask that, but I would get eaten alive on Twitter.

So if the national committee meets on 3 Nov, then the earliest there can be a strike is 17, maybe 18 Nov. At least I’ll be nearly finished teaching by then. Small mercies!