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 might look into these public sector jobs then! Working 36 hours a week for 6 figures sounds like a dream.
I totally agree that it’s subject specific and I’m sure some could triple their salaries (I’d be really tempted to do that). In my soc sci discipline, I doubt it though.
In areas like law, you only earn big if you bring in big money though. In my subject, large grants are very few and far between. The biggest source of income by far is student fees.

I'm not striking I'm not in ucu anyway. I moved from a senior job in healthcare (where I was on almost £10k more) to academia and compared to front facing clinical work it's an absolute doddle. Yes it's hard work at times but mentally it's a breeze. I have to try not to roll my eyes when I hear colleagues moaning about being "stressed", also the drama and hand wringing about being put "at risk" having to go in f2f after 2 years, I'm afraid my impression of academia is it's full of precious princesses.

I was frontline clinical less than 2 years ago making life and death calls about various issues. Now I have to grapple with lesson plans and timetables. There's no comparison.

I agree in part with that, although the pensions are different to my mind. The fund is well able to manage current payments and there is no reason to slash it 35%.

I agree with all the aims of the strike. I want very insecure teaching fellows to be given better conditions - we have zero hours lecturers ffs. I want the sex and race salary gaps to be properly addressed. I don’t think, though, that striking will achieve these aims

@bigkidsdidit

I agree in part with that, although the pensions are different to my mind. The fund is well able to manage current payments and there is no reason to slash it 35%.

I agree with all the aims of the strike. I want very insecure teaching fellows to be given better conditions - we have zero hours lecturers ffs. I want the sex and race salary gaps to be properly addressed. I don’t think, though, that striking will achieve these aims

Yes and I fully appreciate that because I am at a post-92 the pension issue doesn’t impact on me.

I am also against exploiting teaching fellows and HPLs. But as you say, the strike won’t help. We saw in 2019 that even when people struck for over 20 days, the employers wouldn’t budge. The work eventually gets done anyway and students pay fees upfront so employers can easily sit it out. The only thing that happened was that people lost money. Why does UCU think that the strikes will work now? If you don’t think you can win, you don’t strike. You find some other way to achieve your aims.

Also, as has been pointed out on here, many of the people associated with UCU or claiming to be anti-precarity directly endorse precarity by tweeting encouragement for people to apply to do a PhD with them or patting themselves on the back for getting teaching buy-out. I know someone who hasn’t taught for 6 years due to buy out. She’s on the pickets in solidarity according to Twitter (but notes that she herself has been blessed 🤨) yet her entire career has been built on other people’s insecurity and it’s actually hard to see how this could change. If someone wants to be bought out from their actual job but wants to be able to come back to it afterwards, that necessitates a fixed term post, ie precarity. Or, if no new job is created, buy out causes extreme workloads for those not bought out.

@Glowtastic

I'm not striking I'm not in ucu anyway. I moved from a senior job in healthcare (where I was on almost £10k more) to academia and compared to front facing clinical work it's an absolute doddle. Yes it's hard work at times but mentally it's a breeze. I have to try not to roll my eyes when I hear colleagues moaning about being "stressed", also the drama and hand wringing about being put "at risk" having to go in f2f after 2 years, I'm afraid my impression of academia is it's full of precious princesses.

I was frontline clinical less than 2 years ago making life and death calls about various issues. Now I have to grapple with lesson plans and timetables. There's no comparison.

I agree totally. Academics have no idea how easy we've had it, and continue to have it, in the context of Covid compared to others. I'm not just talking about front-line workers in healthcare but delivery people, supermarket workers, self-employed people who lost all their customers. I'm in a department with a very strong rhetoric of fighting inequality and social injustice, but the lack of critical reflection during Covid has been absolutely astounding.

My friend just alerted me to this thread which was then ringing in my ears as I read your response. This thread just smacks of a professional-type job during Covid - no worse, no better

Thanks for that link @KStockHERO

I’d say that workload over the last 2 years is on the lighter side of normal. I have a large research grant (hence some teaching buyout) but I still teach 2 modules a semester and I’ve had to deal with a scared Postdoc looking at unemployment in 6 months, which turns into resentment, which is pretty hard to take on a daily basis. I’m sure we all have our own “war stories”

Yes, we are all tired. Living in a pandemic is tiring, dealing with anxious angry students is tiring. But no more so than usual.

My HoD has done everything we’ve done and kept us solvent and thriving as well. She’s a total total star.

I’ll think myself lucky if I see either of my parents alive again. They live considerably further away than mainland Europe.

It is really heartening to read some of the posts on this thread. I thought I was alone in my thoughts about university lecturers.

I am a lecturer and been a very active union member all of my working life (35 years) and have been a member of UCU for 20 years. I have never, ever not been on strike (I am normally on picket duty) but this time I have cancelled my membership and will not be striking.

I have only just started working as a university lecturer. Before that I taught in schools and in further education. University lecturers really have no idea how hard teachers in other contexts work. Lecturing in a university really is very well paid in comparison to working in further education. Most importantly the workload is far, far less. Universities have layer upon layer of support staff so that 90% of a lecturers work is just lecturing, lecturing prep, marking and research. For FE lecturers there is an absolutely massive load of other admin stuff added to their academic duties together with a target culture which not only includes recruitment and results but also retention and punctuality. Add to this an absolute expectation that every single differentiated student need is catered for (and students in FE tend to have LOTS of needs). The gulf between FE and university lecturing is absolutely huge and yet I don't remember any solidarity at all when FE were getting massive cuts over the years and getting more and more added to our workload and getting paid less and less. The final insult is that our pensions are a tiny, weeny fraction of those enjoyed by uni lecturers after having worked much harder.

I regard my work as a university lecturer as cushy. If UCU members in universities really are interested in social justice they should be showing solidarity towards those who really are getting the short end of the stick ie. FE lecturers, school teachers, and their own students.

Most importantly the workload is far, far less. Universities have layer upon layer of support staff so that 90% of a lecturers work is just lecturing, lecturing prep, marking and research. For FE lecturers there is an absolutely massive load of other admin stuff added to their academic duties together with a target culture which not only includes recruitment and results but also retention and punctuality. Add to this an absolute expectation that every single differentiated student need is catered for (and students in FE tend to have LOTS of needs).

I’m assuming you think this because you’ve just started working as a lecturer. We have to do all of the admin things you mention (ok, maybe punctuality is not a target, but certainly retention is) and a hell of a lot more. Most of this term has been a six day week on campus for me because we have open days for offer holders most Saturdays. Even before I was a HoD, I spent over 40% of my time doing admin related either to UG or PG programmes, alongside things like pastoral care and widening participation work. Now it’s 90% over a 70 to 80 hour week. The “layer upon layer of support staff,” incidentally, are often giving us work to do, not taking it away,

Not that I agree with the strike action, but I’m somewhat bemused to hear I don’t have to worry about recruitment when that’s what I’m doing every Saturday, with my line manager breathing down my neck that I need to up our numbers or risk losing the tiny number of staff I have in my department.

I think being a HoD or any other form of manager adds a layer of hell to your existence. I take my hat off to mine and that’s also part of my worry - our recruitment figures are dropping as we lose students to RG unis and this will mean redundancies. This is why I am sceptical of my colleagues’ belief that all unis are loaded and could easily afford all UCU’s demands and more.

If I am very honest, my job as an academic is far easier than many people I know. I have my busy moments but as mentioned, it is not life or death. I worked in a high pressure role in the public sector before though so maybe my perspective is clouded by that. I also don’t have management responsibility. My friend is a school teacher and the hell she has been through during the pandemic is nothing compared to me working from home and teaching online. I decided from the outset not to go above and beyond with my teaching, even if it meant my materials were a bit crap. I often see academics on Twitter saying they spend hours marking a paper, days writing a lecture and countless hours producing online resources. I don’t do this stuff because I don’t get time allocated for it. If my employers want it, they have to give me the time. But generally, I don’t think my materials or feedback are really worse than my colleagues’. Spending ages on something doesn’t always make it good.

Out of interest, I did have a look at civil service jobs and while some of the management roles advertised are 75-100k, most of the posts are in the 45-65k range. Realistically, I think that’s where many of the soc sci SLs I know would be at if they weren’t in academia.

Lecturing in a university really is very well paid in comparison to working in further education. Most importantly the workload is far, far less. Universities have layer upon layer of support staff so that 90% of a lecturers work is just lecturing, lecturing prep, marking and research.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

This would be offensive if it weren’t so inaccurate.

Do you do research @Horological? Do you have a PhD? What external research grants have you been awarded?

How many personal tutees do you have?
How many PhD students do you supervise (hold their hands)?

How much do you publish? What books have you written? What journals do you edit, or advise, or do peer reviewing for?

As@GCAcademic says it’s obvious you’re very inexperienced. Like her, I’m spending most Saturdays until Easter doing admissions interviews, talks, tours. And unlike my PS colleagues, I don’t get time off in lieu. Straight back to marking on Sunday and a long day of teaching on Monday. And 2 research papers to draft by mid-March ….

Yes academia can be extremely high stress. I do think having had a previous career clouds one’s judgement though. I nearly burned out in my previous job but it was hand on heart much much more pressure and work than I have now. So in comparison it’s not as bad now. However, some of my colleagues with the same workload as me believe the current pressure is unbearable, so it all depends on someone’s previous experience and perspective.
It is also the case that some people in academia coast and have quite an easy life compared to others. That’s because work isn’t always fairly allocated. HoDs seem to have an enormous amount of work.

I should say I am also research active and publish in high quality journals and probably above what’s expected at my type of institution and multiple outputs were submitted to the REF. So it’s not the case that I don’t do all parts of an academic’s job.

For me, the debate we're descending into here (about how easy/hard, stressful/chill academia is) is indicative of one of the reasons why striking doesn't work in the sector.

How you experience academia depends on your own personal approach (background, past work experiences, attitude to work in general) but also your discipline, your institution, your head of department, your students. Academic life in social sciences (my life) is very different from academic life in STEM (my partner's life). So, to me, a blanket strike action which looks the same across the sector doesn't work because the sector is so variable.

Variability of experience also shows that UCU's claims, which underpin strike action, aren't universally believed or experienced the way UCU would like to think that they are. I'm seeing lots on Twitter about scabs, people crossing the picket lines, people not showing solidarity. There is absolutely no discussion of the fact that a significant proportion of academics simply don't agree.

On another note, I am seeing lots of adverts for teach-outs. I can't see a difference between teach-outs and, well, teaching. I suspect that many of the teach-out sessions will form the basis of academic papers later on

I too do not recognise horological's characterisation of my role, which is pretty constant with a lot of admin and student pastoral support, with some very very needy students with education plans, and recruitment, course redevelopment, etc etc, plus running a research institute and maintaining my active and global research reputation, with very little admin support as that is cut to the bone and carried out by temporary posts and lowest grades. I know for sure, statuswise and supportwise, it is a professorial role nothing like my father in law's in 1970s, which was perhaps more like what is being described. It does depend on where you are employed thigh, if course. Mine is middle ranking uni.

It does depend on where you are employed though, if course. Mine is middle ranking uni.

I'm at a Russell Group which is supposedly a World top 100, and in a department which regularly tops or is in the top 3 of most national league tables. The pressure is fairly intense both to achieve at a high level in research, and to facilitate the student experience. I'm in the humanities, and we have targets at all levels for research income and excellent feedback from students ...

I think the sense of pressure from needy students is what gets me at the moment - the research stuff I enjoy and I'm respected for, and it's tough because I set myself almost impossible goals (workaholics'r'us). But the lack of respect from students that I really am an expert and they might be wise to follow my advice, or even read what I suggest they read, gets me down. I do worry about students who are in a programme which is in part based on their ability to communicate, but I have a pile of individual learning agreements with stuff about finding discussion in seminars a challenge, so I mustn't call on them etc etc etc. I worry a lot about how they're going to survive beyond the university.

I suspect we get more vocally needy students in the humanities as many of our disciplines ask students to do a fair bit of self-reflection. Ach, I think I'm just jaded from a week of seeing tutees ...

I also think that this conversation is interesting in that I see how much we internalise the values hierarchy of the increasingly neo-liberal, instrumentalised ideology of this country for the last 40 years.

What we have learned from the pandemic is how important human communications , contact, and sociability are to our basic health and survival as a society. Yet humanities-led research is regularly dismissed as not 'real world' or - in the post from FE above "cushy."

Critical thinking is absolutely key nowadays (eg. the TRA issues we are all resiling from - a dose of critical thinking would be salutary there!), and yet those academics whose central disciplinary transferable skill is critical thinking are dismissed as not knowing about the "real" world of work.

Something to think about?

@KStockHERO

For me, the debate we're descending into here (about how easy/hard, stressful/chill academia is) is indicative of one of the reasons why striking doesn't work in the sector.

How you experience academia depends on your own personal approach (background, past work experiences, attitude to work in general) but also your discipline, your institution, your head of department, your students. Academic life in social sciences (my life) is very different from academic life in STEM (my partner's life). So, to me, a blanket strike action which looks the same across the sector doesn't work because the sector is so variable.

Variability of experience also shows that UCU's claims, which underpin strike action, aren't universally believed or experienced the way UCU would like to think that they are. I'm seeing lots on Twitter about scabs, people crossing the picket lines, people not showing solidarity. There is absolutely no discussion of the fact that a significant proportion of academics simply don't agree.

On another note, I am seeing lots of adverts for teach-outs. I can't see a difference between teach-outs and, well, teaching. I suspect that many of the teach-out sessions will form the basis of academic papers later on

I agree with everything you say here. It’s probably not helpful to have a debate over whether academia is hard but you are so right that there is not a unanimous opinion on this.

I am also disappointed that many of the UCU people have seemingly no sympathy for those who simply cannot strike for financial reasons. One of them tweeted that he can’t see any justification for anyone on 50k to not be on the picket line. That totally ignores the fact that people may have various commitments, including being the sole breadwinner. I don’t know how to say it clearly enough but the strike fund does not cover the loss of an SL salary. So ‘use the strike fund’ is not an answer. And the strikes didn’t work last time and won’t work now so people will be cautious about losing money they will not get back.

Anyway, after reading these posts and also speaking to another colleague who it turns out is also against the strikes, I won’t be striking and I have just resigned my membership to UCU. I wish I’d done it when the whole Kathleen Stock mess happened but better late than never, eh? And the people on this thread also inspires me to do that.

I do hope the issues with exploitation and precarity are resolved but they won’t be resolved through striking, that much I am sure of. Shamefully, the UCU must know they are on a hiding to nothing, yet they still insist on pushing ahead with this futile action, causing even more financial harm to members.

@Violetsarepurple1
Well done on resigning today, I hope you've emailed UCU to let them know why you've ceased your membership. I did. I got no reply.

I've seen a couple of branches today tweeting about the numbers of new members signing up since the strikes started. I am so tempted to ask about the break down by career stage (are these all PhD students?), how many members have they shed over the last couple of years, and how many of those members they've lost are women.

But I shall sit on my hands. Just as I did over those tweets about people who can't afford to strike, who should just claim from the strike fund. Infuriating.

See, this is what I don't understand. Why does UCU keep on striking for no gain? Against my better judgement I did speak to a picketer the other day who was convinced that striking would convince our V-C to give all black academics a pay rise. (Knowing our VC he would probably cut everyone's pay to that of black staff and say we now had full equality, ta-da!) Are people really that naive?

Are there no genuine alternatives to striking? To me a marking and assessment boycott seems to be an institution's Achilles' heel and would create much more disruption in terms of preventing graduations and stalling degree progression.

how many of those members they've lost are women

Not sure they actually have the data you want cf gender identity.

Are there no genuine alternatives to striking? To me a marking and assessment boycott seems to be an institution's Achilles' heel and would create much more disruption in terms of preventing graduations and stalling degree progression.

I agree completely re marking and assessment. I wonder whether UCU is concerned about their ability to sustain that though. Lots of institutions threatening 100% deduction for ASOS at the moment, and while the legality of that is dubious, I'm not sure there would be appetite among members for the financial risk involved in an assessment boycott that lasts for an unspecified time.

The thing that infuriates me most about this round of strikes is that my institution is actually pretty good on these issues (VC in favour of higher institutional pension contributions and proactive about de-casualisation). I'm not saying there's no room for improvement, but among the UCU branch there's just no recognition of the complexities/subtleties of issues within the sector. I had one colleague refuse to sit on an interview panel for a fixed term academic post because he's opposed to casual contracts. It was to cover maternity leave FFS!

I'm not a member of UCU and disagree with the strike action for all of the reasons pp's have stated.

I've worked for many years in the NHS prior to academia and I would say the pressures are different, neither is 'easier' than the other. I would have high-pressured days in the NHS and work extra hours, but ultimately I could work a 45-50 hour week and go home not feeling like there was still more to do and I was falling behind. In my department at the moment it seems that 9-5pm is filled with teaching, meeting students, tutorials and everything else has to be done outside of these hours (research, admin the list goes on).

I'm a mum to a toddler and for various reasons, can only work 8-5 Mon to Fri currently. I can feel myself falling behind my colleagues - promotion is getting further away. But the other option is to work late into the evening, survive on about 4 hours sleep a night and eventually burn out. That's fine with me, I've reconciled the lack of career progression with my own metal health. But why should I have to? Why is working 45 to 50 hours a week not enough? Something needs to change.

Lots of institutions threatening 100% deduction for ASOS at the moment, and while the legality of that is dubious, I'm not sure there would be appetite among members for the financial risk involved in an assessment boycott that lasts for an unspecified time.

I think this is key.

I read on twitter that UCU is not planning to take any legal action on deductions for ASOS which I thought was interesting. Either their chances of success are low or there's no money to fund it (most likely, seeing as they overran their strike fund last time).

Meanwhile, those of us who are hanging in there as members, are pondering the NEC elections, and wondering if there is anyone sane to vote for ....

@LaChanticleer

Meanwhile, those of us who are hanging in there as members, are pondering the NEC elections, and wondering if there is anyone sane to vote for ....

You might find this useful: ucu4af.wixsite.com/website-2/post/ucu-elections-2022. It's motivated by the academic freedom issue, however the listing of which (if any) faction candidates belong to is more broadly useful.