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.

Do tell?

MNHQ have hidden my post as I was writing it but it’s on twitter and elsewhere.

Posted without comment

I’ve seen it now. Not sure what to make of this, it’s always a bit odd when people who are in the public eye sue one another. But in my opinion, a wise union leader would stay well clear of petty antagonisms and avoidable acrimony for the greater good. The previous GS of UCU, Sally Hunt, would have been unlikely to get into these kinds of scrapes.

I agree with you entirely @ExUCU

She's head of an organisation and has significant power, but doesn't act in accordance with this. She's basically incredibly unprofessional despite being in an incredibly professional position.

IMHO, when she was elected to GS she should've taken a step back from her personal Twitter account. She should have left it up, left it open but left it alone.

Given the nature of the university sector, the UCU's identity is inherently bound up with its GS (more so than other unions I think). She's not just making herself look like an unprofessional pillock but also the UCU itself. She acts like the mean/popular girl who got elected to the school council.

The thing with Grady, is that her twitter persona, and the very fact she has a persona, is what has made her a success (particularly among the younger demographic/PhD students), yet at the same time it is likely to put other groups of people off enormously.

That's very true @aridapricot

So a reballot is already on the cards?! twitter.com/DrJoGrady/status/1625444224844939264

I thought a re ballot was always part of the plan, so that UCU will be able to call a marking boycott in the summer?

And there is probably not much more I can or should say about Grady but ‘pillock’ is quite apt IMO.

For what it’s worth, the picket lines at my campus are quite quiet. Haven’t spotted any performative picket baking yet, either. Has it all become a bit naff?

Yes, I heard that today too @ghislaine (possibly from the same source). And Mr Embery has said that any damages he receives will be donated to organisations campaigning for single-sex spaces etc. He's a former colleague of the marvellous Lucy Masoud.

this sort of thing is so infuriating:

twitter.com/alicecbennett/status/1625762749522354177?s=20&t=ROQ0C_aio_ARhTuOLfaaAw

i mean none of those “solutions” are going to help now are they, in the middle of an 18 day strike that the UCU insisted we could win? Lobby the gvt, ffs 🤦‍♀️ As for moving money across the sector, that will mean that people at cash rich institutions will find that there are job cuts there instead of at post-92s. I am pro numbers caps actually but the idea that this will provide a magic solution is laughable - it just equalises things a little bit. You’re still not going to get permanent jobs for all currently fixed term employees, usually because they are employed on an externally funded project or providing cover for someone else who has external funding.

It’s such a mess. From the pics of the apparently massive pickets at my place yesterday, it looks like 90% students on there.

It's the sort of naive inanity that leads people outside of academia to pronounce (understandably) that academics don't live in the real world.

FFS. Some people do literally think there is a magic money tree that the government (or vice-chancellors) keep hidden from the rest of us.

So someone in that thread very sensibly points out that one of the OP's suggestions might not be feasible and people go like, how do you dare bring up reality? Sums it up, really! twitter.com/Gibson_XL/status/1625771666436419584

@GCAcademic Yep, coupled with the fact that, compared to most jobs, we do have good pensions, good conditions, interesting work, good pay etc. I absolutely agree with those that say academics aren't living in the real world - most absolutely are not.

Pffft, reality is a social construct!

My colleagues who come from industry and my civil service DH point out that they never work/ed in the evenings/weekend in their other jobs.

Meanwhile my friend who is also an academic, and I, have a non sleeper each and we are told by other academic parents "it's so flexible, just pick the DCs up at home time and finish work when they are in bed!". It's been a while since I fell asleep in a DC's bed to be fair, but she and her academic DH do it often and I have a jack in the box child who needs walking back to bed every 5 mins some evenings.

I came from industry and find the flexibility to be largely fantastic - we have small DC, a commute and no family nearby. I definitely would've been part time by now as just making pickup would've been difficult.

However, the downside is the 24/7 nature of the job, definitely don't feel like I'm viewed as off the clock at 5pm.

Having a different background, I do find sometimes that academics don't seem to live in the same world as the rest of us - see the howling complaints every exam session when they have to fill in some paperwork and write a two page report.

I have one colleague who howls at minor paperwork (5 emails to complain about a task he could do with one) but the rest just do it.
Incidentally I have a friend who was a mature student in my department who says this colleague has form for harassing students. I think I will need to disclose this to my HoD. Will not use student name but she was a year rep.

There is overwork in HE and unreasonable expectations but the dynamics are far more complicated than ‘evil bosses exploiting workers’. There are many workoholics in HE, competitive overwork, a lack of boundaries (one’s own and others’), and a reluctance to discipline problematic behaviour. The hierarchies, formal and informal, mean that some get away with not working very much at all, at least not for their employer, while others are exploited. I don’t think unions can do much about this - but I may be wrong.

The hierarchies, formal and informal, mean that some get away with not working very much at all, at least not for their employer, while others are exploited. I don’t think unions can do much about this - but I may be wrong.

I think this is spot on @ExUCU. The issue is systematic - but perhaps in a different, and more complex ways, that UCU says it's systematic.

A crucial issue, that has been discussed in these boards over the years, is that the type of work we do does not lend itself easily to collective action. In some ways we are more akin to freelancers (like a performer, a consultant... - as also evidenced in the working hours flexibility discussed above) than employees. Except for teaching, with any other activity that we cease during industrial action (research, networking, external partnerships, etc.), we would have to sustain significant damage to our own profiles before this starts to harm the employer in any way.

I started as HoD this academic year, after 10 years of seeing a chronic staff shortage in my department that meant that even my internally and externally funded research periods could not be protected as they should. I am now starting to see that a lot of the overwork is: a) of our own making, given that the university insists that we teach fewer courses, but we have insisted on teaching more (this ties in with the above: apparently our "identity" as a department and as individual researchers is tied in with differentiating ourselves from others by offering a much vaster course choice); b) very unequally distributed, with successive HoDs allowing some staff to not do much while piling up the work on others.

I agree, @aridapricot , the internal inequalities are a major issue. As HoD, do you have enough power to do something about these?

@ExUCU I am implementing a number of measures to rationalize our course offer. Quite tame things which means there is no great opposition (other than a few raised eyebrows) but also that it's more like cutting at the margins. If this doesn't solve the problem significantly I'd have to tackle things more decisively, which I am not looking forward to (even though my line manager and their line manager are very supportive of me doing so).

My experience of management is that those who complain most about workloads typically have the lowest workloads, and indeed advocate for departments continuing to teach more modules/courses than needed. Many of those on picket lines holding up signs about precarity, short term contracts and poor conditions for PhD students are advocates for only partially funded or self funded PhD students (to get more students out of the funding pot) and for more PhD teaching support for themselves (even though on picket lines they say such teaching is underpaid).