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.

@dimples76 our VC banned all strikers from using coffee shops or toilets even if they removed all ucu materials.

Blimey! That’s hardcore.

I was on campus today. Was it another strike day? Genuinely didn’t see any pickets and I’ve been on and off campus all day. The pickets were very visible last week but nothing today.

That is hardcore!

It was at a little kiosk which is opposite my office but on Council land not the uni's. I would be surprised if there was such an edict though and I have seen UCU strike materials around the campus.

There was a national demo, so that may be why pickets were quieter yesterday.

LOL the latest is an indefinite strike apparently. I’m sure the strike fund will hold up… Complete clown union.

It seems that, far from having any impact, the strikes last month were welcomed by our students as this gave them the chance to focus on their essay which were due the following week. Excellent strategy as always from UCU!

Parody union for parody academics …

I’m sure the employers are chuckling at the public in-fighting as well, with the GS releasing a video stating that she doesn’t agree with the HEC’s decision on action. She has a point of course as it’s insane to have an indefinite strike as nobody could afford to do more than about a week but it’s an interesting strategy for a union leader to publicly declare that they don’t think the union will win. But then again, Jo Grady’s focus and priority is and always has been Jo Grady. Oh and the awesome pink merch and lit picket-line fancy dress and tiktok videos.

I’ve taken one for the team and watched the latest Grady video. Argh, she’s so embarrassing, talking to a bunch of boffins as if they were morons, with some jazzy lounge music in the background as if she were doing a you tube ‘how to crochet a plant holder’ video.

Anyway, apparently there will be a marking boycott in January (possibly some time after 12 Jan.?) and the HEC wants an all-out strike in February but Jo doesn’t think this is a good idea. Ok. Helpful for VCs to have this information!

I still remember the days of the previous UCU general secretary who was a lot more dignified than Grady. Alas, alas, different times …

I turned the sound off and used subtitles. What I don’t understand is why she used the UCU twitter account to host this video. Should it be on her personal account?

Yes, I suppose it should! Maybe she has taken the mantra ‘you are the union!’ a little bit too seriously.

What happens with a marking boycott, is there just a delay in marking or do students never get their stuff marked?

Students do not get their marks until negotiations between local union branches and the university are concluded. Marking boycotts took place this past summer. Some universities were quite hardline about it, others gave in and staff suffered no pay deductions. It’s the finalist marking most unis are concerned about as students can’t graduate with a mark if there is long-term disruption.

If I were a VC, I’d be tempted to threaten significant wage deductions for anybody who didn’t get their marks in on time. For Heads of Department and administrative staff, this is a looming logistical nightmare which will create oodles of extra work.

Honestly, imagine starting a row on Twitter. How embarrassing! The management will really be quaking at this rate. It's so frustrating to have poor union leadership.

What happens when some, not all, of the markers on a module are part of a marking boycott? Do some students get their marks whilst others don't?

@FloozingThePlot I don’t know if there was any coordinated strategy but at my institution they withheld all the grades in a module until all the marks were returned. This affected modules quite unevenly. Boycott participants ranged from 0-100% and of those who did participate, some did not start marking until the dispute was resolved locally while others adopted a ‘mark and park’ approach so their marks were available immediately the dispute was over. The students were very stressed out.

Marking boycotts are so cruel. Luckily I'm not UCU because I couldn't bring myself to do that to my students.

It really is cruel on students, especially weaker ones who don’t know if they have failed or not. Some colleagues marked finalist work, then joined the boycott for first and second year work. Others did not mark full stop and took forever to complete marking once the boycott was over.

Some unis tried to hire external markers. If the price is right and discretion is guaranteed, who knows who might be tempted …? Not me, I’ve got my own marking to do!

It is cruel and unfair to students indeed, and I do think many striking academics would genuinely hate to do that to students. However, as a non-UCU member, I do not think there many other actions that could genuinely put pressure on employers.
Academia is not like the NHS or the railway system or even schools, where even a few days strike can cause quite a lot of inconvenience and chaos. That's just the nature of the work and not much can be done about it. It means as academics we'd need to strike and forego pay for longer to get the same level of disruption (and hence a chance to be heard by managers) as sectors.
However, my experience is that what little leverage we had through withdrawing our work has been eroded further in the past few years. My sense is that since 2018 universities have got better at navigating each wave of strikes. This is in no small part due to the behaviour of many academics. I see my striking colleagues going out of their way every time to upload supplementary materials to their course pages, to offer extra tutorials after the strikes, and to amend assignment questions and marking criteria to make sure that no one is disadvantaged. I do understand that they do not want to cause distress to students, but if they go out of their way not to do so, then how can they expect their action to put any kind of pressure on the employer?
I say this as someone whose commute has been repeatedly disrupted by rail strikes over the past several months. Yes I resent this and on a couple of occasion the chaos has reduced me to tears. But I understand that, if railway workers went out of their way to make sure that I and millions other workers are not inconvenienced, then what kind of incentive would management have to address the workers' requests?
I am not a fan of marking boycotts because the students would obviously be innocent victims - but I struggle to see what else might work. Perhaps if all academics stopped applying for external funding and/or collaborating with external stakeholders, but I think we all know what are the chances of that happening...

I would suggest not cooperating with exercises such as the REF or Athena Swan. Those are very long term but would hurt the institution not students.

Yes, I agree, ghislaine - my understanding (could be wrong) is that each university has to have permission from the academic staff to submit their work as part of the REF. So, we could do our research, apply for funding grants etc. But then the uni'd lose out on government funding if the REF didn't go ahead as strongly as usual.

However, if that could've been a viable strategy, then it would've made more sense to have done it already for the last cycle. So perhaps it doesn't work that way.

I'm just so tired of endless strikes that don't really work. The current UCU leadership is appalling.

I think non-cooperation could work at the right time but the current leadership seem to be fixated on strikes, even though strikes are not that effective in our sector.

Yes I agree. If academics stopped applying for funding, or stopped doing all their impact work and outreach, I would think universities would be a bit more scared.

As an outsider, the devotion to striking seems more ideological than strategic. It doesn't work in every sector.

This is... interesting notesfrombelow.org/article/how-stop-university