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.

I do happen to think we need a better pay offer and 5% is not enough. However, I really cannot afford to strike. 18 days is insane.

Shout out to anyone else who may have to literally walk through a picket line tomorrow. I'm very, very firm in my reasons for not being in the UCU (and respect my colleagues' rights to come to a different conclusion to me) but it's still daunting.

Good luck!

I think it might get quite acrimonious this time for non-strikers, judging from the ominous tweets of the usual suspects:

twitter.com/PriyamvadaGopal/status/1620481163331792896?cxt=HHwWgMDTmYnCjf0sAAAA

Why are they always also militantly anti-women? And why is everybody afraid of them?

I’m bracing myself and keeping my head down; this could get nasty as UCU are heading for failure IMO.

I'm not expecting it to get acrimonious, though we've always managed to be pretty respectful of each other's positions in my department.

PG is pretty much a professional Twitter outrage bot; I don't think she's representative of even a minority of academics. Most intelligent people recognise that 18 days of strikes in a short period is not affordable for most people. And if it was affordable, then our pay clearly isn't an issue.

Forgot to add: most of the people in my department who went on strike last term have said they can't afford to participate in this latest action other than very intermittently.

I’m at my desk already. No picket line at 7am 😁👍🏻

I’ll be happy to be proven wrong!

Our picket line is 7.30-11.30 and always poorly attended. It’s also only at one entrance so quite easy to avoid I’m glad to say.

PG is pretty much a professional Twitter outrage bot; I don't think she's representative of even a minority of academics.

I actually thought that was quite mild for Gopal lol! I do agree that she is a professional outrage bot (but I am astonished at how many people I know who otherwise I consider intelligent and balanced admire her).

Yes, very mild.

I always wonder about the unspoken-about financial/ economic support that some activists have - mostly from partners or investments. I don’t know about Dr Gopal, but I do know of one prominent TWAW feminist who very publicly left academia of her own accord (not chased out). I know how she has afforded to do this, and it is as capitalist as fuck. But never spoken about …

I’m single and live in an expensive town. My salary is a good professional salary, but there is little room for manoeuvre and no other income. I’m comfortable but can’t be sanguine about losing half a month’s salary.

Is the TWAW academic who left initialled SA? Am always intrigued and am very nosey. Plus she was horrid to me once, and I have a grievance!

Professor Gopal, please!!

She is the daughter of an Indian diplomat and grew up in Vienna. Likes to pick on her lessers, such as college porters.

I went past our main campus on my way in this morning; fewer pickets than usual I would say. Only one of the gates to the campus I work on (science) is ever picketed and I didn't come in that way. Our car park is full as usual.

I left UCU over Kathleen Stock and since I'm on a fixed term contract and may well not get a job in academia after this do not feel as bad as I would if I were permanent. Currently sitting in a student space working, as I think I pass as a mature student :)

I recently found out that someone in my dept goes to the picket line and is active in the union but does not submit strike hours and loses no pay. This made me feel like I have the moral high ground tbh

Wow. Your colleague is really dishonest and hypocritical. I’m (almost) speechless.

I was too, but then I've observed so much hypocrisy and using union activity as a "working class" badge for the academic middle classes, that I realised it's all of a piece, really. I mean in the context of the UCU, specifically. I'm less cynical about other unions.

I find the conduct of the UCU strikes really cringy. To me it smacks of well-paid, pompous, middle-class professionals in pretty decent jobs playacting real working-class struggles.

This is so well put and sums up exactly how I felt when I was working in HE. I left the sector a few years ago, and it was the right move for me for a number of reasons, but I do look back rather wistfully on the terms and conditions that I enjoyed in HE. I think a lot of people in the sector have no clue how privileged they are.

tresleches your colleague breaches his or her contract of employment in a major way. This damages all honest UCU members who declare strike days and it is IMO a sackable offence. I would shop him/her, at least to the local UCU rep. Totally unacceptable. I would be just as angry if I were still in UCU, even more so, because I always declared. Students’ solidarity with strikers is contingent on the understanding that staff lose pay for striking.

I think this is not uncommon. Several of the academics I line manage did not declare that they'd been on strike last term, even after repeated prompting. HR had to get involved in the end. As pointed out by ExUCU, it's a breach of contract to withdraw your labour without the protection of strike action. They're putting themselves in a very vulnerable position.

I think this is not uncommon.

I do hope it's not very widespread, as it would be completely dishonest to the people who do take the hit and lose pay, and to students as well. But I think in many places it's easy to get away with it. We sometimes have more hours in the schedule than contact hours we're supposed to offer so sometimes you can simply cancel a lecture and pretend that this wasn't going to happen all along. And after Covid it's become much more normalized to move teaching online or provide a pre-recorded lecture. I am Head of Department and I certainly haven't been asked to monitor whether the people I line manage are effectively teaching or not, and if I were I would refuse to do it.

What I suspect a lot in my department will do this time is declare only the days where they're teaching and not the others.

I am Head of Department and I certainly haven't been asked to monitor whether the people I line manage are effectively teaching or not, and if I were I would refuse to do it.

We're being asked to keep logs of missed teaching. The university is expecting a significant increase in claims for partial fee refunds this time around, and to have to pay out on these if the teaching has, indeed, been missed.

Oh, and those refunds will come out of departmental budgets; it's not the university who's going to be stumping up!

@Redundance, you might think that but I couldn't possibly say ...

@ExUCU it was disclosed in front of another colleague who is several pay grades above both of us, and was glossed over. I agree with PP, I suspect it's not that unusual. It fits with the blatant self-interest and exceptionalism of (esp younger) UCU members at our institution

@tresleches that is so disappointing and yet unsurprising. The only one who pays in this scenario are the university and the students. But then you can’t complain if employers are not negotiating in good faith!