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.

and indeed advocate for departments continuing to teach more modules/courses than needed.

I've found this to be so true. It is easy to advocate for your department to be inclusive and diverse and kind and caring when the price for being so falls on others.

Doesn’t this just sum up current trends in workplace culture …

Oh yes! It’s all rhetoric and no praxis in my department in that regard.

Have you all seen this making the rounds?

If I were marking it I'd say 52% on a generous day - While there are some good attempts at making the humiliation of colleagues interesting, innovative and culturally relevant by using 'The Simpsons' as proxy, the exercise lacks nuance and raises some problematic issues around inclusion and diversity. The typology doesn't adequately capture the range of 'poor excuses for scabbbing' - particularly notable by their absence are the TERFs who have left UCU because of its woman-hating policies. Moreover, the typology consists of all white characters, most of whom are male and one of whom is dressed in a stereo-typically French outfit which is a clear case of regressive stereotyping and cultural appropriation. Finally, the phrase 'scabbing' is loaded with moral connotations which doesn't fit with the UCU's stance of 'be kind to absolutely everyone'. Do better next time.

I’d give it a 58 (generous marker), chiefly for the nuanced take on hypocrisy and some astute observations on academic vanity, cowardice and other ordinary vices. GCs are not the only ones missing; quite a few Jewish academics are not in UCU because (I think) of the union’s support for the BDS movement?

Also, colleagues on research leave who pretend they are striking but wouldn’t dream of ruining their sabbatical by making a salary sacrifice. But they’ll still cancel that talk they were supposed to give because appearances, appearances …

Interesting, though, to me this speaks of disillusionment. Perhaps the end is nigh.

The cartoon did give me a smile. At my (research heavy) institution, people are very into the not getting paid (“in solidarity”) part of striking but don’t seem to understand the withdrawing their labour part. I already do so much I’m not paid for, no way I’m going to strike and work anyway!

I think often ‘in solidarity’ means drawing your full salary and making a song and dance about donating £50 or £100 to the strike fund. These performances are about as appealing as a lecture on what cutlery to use for various kinds of dessert.

Another day of crossing the picket yesterday. This time earlier in the day, at around 10 am and the picket was again non-existent. Not even a lone he/him with a cardboard placard. Yet this is a branch that regularly tweets about the “awesome turnout”. Inside the Uni buildings, it was business as usual with most of the classrooms in the building occupied for teaching.

Promptly at 8am after 3 day of strike because of WORKLOAD, e-mail from a very active striker in my department proposing a new mechanism to assess our dissertations that will... increase our WORKLOAD in a non-insignificant way.
Completely of our own making, different to what other more realistic and rational departments do. I envisage that the difficulty will actually be persuading College senior management to let us do things in a way that increase our WORKLOAD and not the other way round. You cannot make it up.

Oh ffs. I see this a lot too. People creating huge amounts of extra work for no discernible reason and then they talk about the backbreaking workload. Not to say that there aren’t workload issues but some people seem intent on creating a rod for their own backs.

What enrages me the most about this constant "creating extra work for me and ESPECIALLY for others" thing in my department, is that our NSS results are perfectly mediocre year in year out. So the students aren't really appreciating much the fact that we are so kind and caring.

Nothing we do improves our NSS results. In fact it seems to go down year after year despite all the changes we put in place.

A familiar story.

I sometimes think the more we do for students, the less they see it & appreciate it.

Some good news? https://wonkhe.com/wonk-corner/peace-in-our-time/

Sounds like strikes for the next two weeks are off at least. No mention on the UCu site yet.

Yes it is here: www.ucu.org.uk/article/12791/UCU-Rising-strike-paused-campaign-continues

Well, well, well.

Looks like not everyone’s happy with the pause:

mobile.twitter.com/UCL_UCU/status/1626655662787727365

I'm confused by the emphasis on the lowest paid, removal of the lowest point on the pay spine, etc.. While this is good news for those employees, does UCU have members who are on this grade? Surely not?

Oops, cross-posted. I see that UCL tweet is saying similar.

Ha, ‘peace in our time’? If this is a reference to the Munich Agreement, is Wonkhe comparing Jo Grady to Hitler? I’m really not a fan but that’s a tad OTT …

On reflection, and bearing in mind the responses from the rank and file, it’s more likely Jo Grady is Neville Chamberlain.

But I am relieved on behalf of my students. War is hell.

I’m getting flashbacks to Sally Hunt and how her capitulation went down with the membership. ‘Twas ever thus.

Oh dear oh dear mobile.twitter.com/SamMorecroft/status/1626650904215621649

“Sally Hunt for the Tik Tok generation.”

I did laugh.