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]

I am at a post-92 institution that is on strike following a reballot. I have not striked even though I am a UCU member as I don't think that the strike action will be effective. I therefore think that it's not justifiable in terms of damaging my students' experience and the loss of income for me especially as I am a part time lone parent.

I keep meaning to leave UCU but they are now balloting for a local strike. I feel more concerned about that. I am currently a senior lecturer but new appointments at Grade 7 are going to be 'assistant professors' and those of us who are already on Grade 7 will remain as SLs until we can prove we have made the grade. I have been at the top scale of Grade 7 since I joined the university as that was as close as they could salary match what I was earning in professional practice. I agree that academia can be very stressful but I do feel that I have a lot more freedom and flexibility than in practice.

[Violetsarepurple1]

I have been catching up with this thread and I agree with many comments on it. Priyamvada Gopal is one of the people who tweeted about her pension being slashed to 9 thousand pounds per annum. Wikipedia tells me that she is 54 and started at Cambridge 21 years ago, so will have built up substantial pension provision before now. Yet people are retweeting her and talking about how hard it would be to live on 9,000 a year, as if that is what she will have to do. I don’t know if she thinks that is what she will have to live on or whether she is deliberately bullshitting for attention but either way it is wrong.

@dimples76 good luck with the ballot. I have read about that proposal and it sounds quite damaging so I hope it doesn’t go ahead.

[KStockHERO]

thread [[https://twitter.com/Menzwa/status/1493244459739459589]] on why people may not be striking.

Absolutely no mention of dissatisfaction with UCU, concerns over behaviour towards female academics by UCU, people not being convinced by the validity of 'Four Fights', etc. etc.

Nope, just all reasons to make non-strikers look like pathological idiots. #BeKind

[KStockHERO]

Here's the thread, not sure what went wrong there

[GCAndProud]

@KStockHERO

thread [[https://twitter.com/Menzwa/status/1493244459739459589]] on why people may not be striking.

Absolutely no mention of dissatisfaction with UCU, concerns over behaviour towards female academics by UCU, people not being convinced by the validity of 'Four Fights', etc. etc.

Nope, just all reasons to make non-strikers look like pathological idiots. #BeKind

Derision of economic decisions not to strike, like it’s a trivial matter that some people might not otherwise be able to pay their mortgage or nursery fees (and of course make the decision to prioritise this). No mention of the fact that These. Strikes. Will. Not. Work. They haven’t done in the past so why expect it now? The biggest victory was the 2018 action and even that wasn’t really a victory because any gains were swiftly rolled back again. Nothing else has produced meaningful gains and the 4 fights are so vaguely expressed that this is impossible anyway. Instead, this is a protest accompanied by a salary donation to our employers. Nothing more. Many of those not striking can see this and they refuse to lose out on pay for the union.

The UCU leadership resembles a student union, only worse. There is such low confidence in them. People deserve so much better.

[ghislaine]

I think some people think that the strikes will work though. At least on twitter there are plenty of people saying ‘strike longer! strike harder!’. So there must be some who believe it to be an effective course of action. I’m awaiting with interest the next move from the UCU.

I did read an interesting history of UCU which revealed that the last tangible win by UCU from strike action was back in 2009.

[GCAndProud]

@ghislaine

I think some people think that the strikes will work though. At least on twitter there are plenty of people saying ‘strike longer! strike harder!’. So there must be some who believe it to be an effective course of action. I’m awaiting with interest the next move from the UCU.

I did read an interesting history of UCU which revealed that the last tangible win by UCU from strike action was back in 2009.

Yes, I agree that some people still seem to think it will work but I really struggle to understand their reasoning by this stage. Someone who has participated in all strike action since 2019 has lost 35 days pay in just over 2 years and there literally is nothing to show for it. The employers can sit out these strikes easily while people freeze on the picket lines.

I will also be interested in what they propose next and how long people continue to listen to them.

[dimples76]

Thanks Violetsarepurple1.

My team is very divided about the strike and one of the non-union members messaged us all on Sunday afternoon to ask who was striking this week as she was worried re NSS. You can imagine how well that went down. I really want to leave the work WhatsApp group especially as she frequently messages out of hours but don't see how I can really do it without looking like I am flouncing out - which I guess I kind of am.

[aridapricot]

I've just seen that someone in my faculty who is super super active on UCU and on the "anti-precarity" front took the opportunity on one of the non-strike days last week to post a research assistant job in one of their projects. 6 months, 0.5 post... honestly the lack of self-awareness is just mind-boggling.

[ghislaine]

I do think that there is some disingenuousness in the “precarity” argument. According to UCU, over 50% of academic staff at my institution are on precarious contracts. But that includes PhD students teaching undergrads 4-6 a week, maternity and sabbatical covers, a part-time research assistant working on a discrete project etc. These sorts of roles have a fixed term purpose and a natural end. They are not designed as a substitute for a full time academic position. To my mind this is not the same as someone existing on a series of post-doc positions without end in the manner of Jo Edge.

[dimples76]

I agree ghislaine. I work with someone who used to be on a permanent contract then left the university to return to industry. He came back to the university on a 1 year contract a few years ago. I think that he feels that he has to say yes to everything to ensure that his contract is renewed and I think that he has been treated v shoddily - there is a permanent vacancy in the team and he is doing a good job. That is completely different to PGR roles and genuine fixed term roles.

[GCAndProud]

@aridapricot

I've just seen that someone in my faculty who is super super active on UCU and on the "anti-precarity" front took the opportunity on one of the non-strike days last week to post a research assistant job in one of their projects. 6 months, 0.5 post... honestly the lack of self-awareness is just mind-boggling.

Aaaaaannnndd THIS is why these performative protests will never work. I’ve seen similar SO many times. “I stand in solidarity with my precarious colleagues, isn’t it awful, yaddi, yada” followed by “come work with me on my exciting new projects on a 0.3 basis for 6 months”. I don’t understand how they don’t get it - that RA is precarious BECAUSE OF YOU. You literally created that precarious job. It wouldn’t exist if you hadn’t got your project funded.

If academia eliminated precarious contracts, we’d have far fewer PhD students, we wouldn’t have teaching buy-out (or it would be harder to get) and you wouldn’t be able to ask for a fractional fixed term person to help you with your research. That’s blatantly not what these people want though so instead they will make a show of protesting against it, hoping nobody connects any dots.

[acfree123]

If academia eliminated precarious contracts, we’d have far fewer PhD students, we wouldn’t have teaching buy-out (or it would be harder to get) and you wouldn’t be able to ask for a fractional fixed term person to help you with your research.

The UCU perspective seems very much skewed towards humanities and social sciences.

In STEM subjects about half of the department will be full time postdocs on fixed term contracts. Nobody seems to have a solution for how STEM would function without postdocs.

[GCAndProud]

@ghislaine

I do think that there is some disingenuousness in the “precarity” argument. According to UCU, over 50% of academic staff at my institution are on precarious contracts. But that includes PhD students teaching undergrads 4-6 a week, maternity and sabbatical covers, a part-time research assistant working on a discrete project etc. These sorts of roles have a fixed term purpose and a natural end. They are not designed as a substitute for a full time academic position. To my mind this is not the same as someone existing on a series of post-doc positions without end in the manner of Jo Edge.

Yes that is also true. How could a GTA get a permanent contract for instance? And roles on externally funded projects have to be fixed term because there is no business need for that job beyond the project, as the person doesn’t teach.
I do feel for people like Jo Edge in terms of precarity (although she’s by all accounts a pretty unpleasant person) but this is what happens when you have an abundance of PhD students in a discipline like History where there are very few permanent jobs. No matter how you twist it, it’s not possible for all history PhDs to get jobs. The only way you can solve it is to stop them doing their PhD in the first place, which I’m not sure many precarious workers would support. Also, I think that if you’re coming up for 10 years from your PhD and the permanent job still doesn’t seem likely, you can choose to carry on chasing what seems an impossible dream or you can pursue a career outside academia (eg professional support at a Uni).

I do apologise for sounding harsh but it’s just that that particular precarious worker is incredibly vitriolic.

[FurryGiraffe]

I think a huge problem with UCU's approach on all issues is that there is a focus on 'the employers' and not the external environment in HE. There is a lot of talk about the evils of neoliberal marketisation of HE, but as soon as it comes to the nitty gritty, it's as though universities exist independently of the funding and regulatory framework created by the government.

And YY to the insanity of lumping all FT contracts in together. I had a colleague refuse to sit on a recruitment panel for a Fixed term post because he disagreed with fixed terms. It was a bloody maternity cover!

[GCAndProud]

@FurryGiraffe

I think a huge problem with UCU's approach on all issues is that there is a focus on 'the employers' and not the external environment in HE. There is a lot of talk about the evils of neoliberal marketisation of HE, but as soon as it comes to the nitty gritty, it's as though universities exist independently of the funding and regulatory framework created by the government.

And YY to the insanity of lumping all FT contracts in together. I had a colleague refuse to sit on a recruitment panel for a Fixed term post because he disagreed with fixed terms. It was a bloody maternity cover!

I think there is a belief that all universities are dripping in cash and could easily make all precarious workers permanent. I think many are in quite bad financial shape and the government gives little support. It’s a dog eat dog world. Meeting the UCU’s demands for pay and pensions is likely to lead to more staffing cuts due to the increased cost. They don’t think about the nuances between somewhere like eg Cambridge and a struggling post-92 that sees its students hoovered up by the nearest RG Uni (they are making alarmingly low grade offers in the bid to get bums on seats).

And yes, would they rather that women got no mat leave or were pushed out for getting pregnant? Actually, some of them probably would.

[KStockHERO]

@FurryGiraffe

I think a huge problem with UCU's approach on all issues is that there is a focus on 'the employers' and not the external environment in HE. There is a lot of talk about the evils of neoliberal marketisation of HE, but as soon as it comes to the nitty gritty, it's as though universities exist independently of the funding and regulatory framework created by the government.

And YY to the insanity of lumping all FT contracts in together. I had a colleague refuse to sit on a recruitment panel for a Fixed term post because he disagreed with fixed terms. It was a bloody maternity cover!

I think that another problem with UCU's approach is that they completely overlook the individual in the issue of precarity.

Some people simply aren't very good at academia. This might be a lack of knowledge or ability in the particular field. Or it might be a lack of general skills like time management, communication, multi-tasking. Or it might be a lack of subject-specific skills like how to talk to industrial partners, how to teach a really controversial topic inclusively etc. Or they might actually just not be a very nice person and alienate people at job interview days.

But UCU seems to come from the perspective that everyone in academia deserves a permanent post. And that once people have their permanent post, they have to keep it no matter what.

I saw a (cringy) placard the other day on Twitter from a UCU member's child saying something like: "My mum deserves a permanent post after seven years of education". And I just thought "Does she? Why? What's her publication record like? What are her teacher evaluations like?"

While I agree that more and more is expected of junior academics coming into the sector, the UCU approach that every PhD student "deserves" a permanent post just doesn't hold up.

[GCAndProud]

While I agree that more and more is expected of junior academics coming into the sector, the UCU approach that every PhD student "deserves" a permanent post just doesn't hold up.

Yes I agree with this. That’s also why I roll my eyes somewhat when people claim that they’d be raking it in in the private sector. Some academics would - I have some very talented, competent colleagues who would have done very well in the private sector. There are also those who are… less impressive, let’s say. Those people I can’t imagine even getting a job outside academia, let alone a highly paid one. Basically, it’s impossible to generalise but UCU does this all the time.

Also, another thing, some of the ones who complain they can’t get a job spend a lot of time on SM calling senior female academics ‘disgusting TERFs’ and other choice terms. If I was hiring, that shit (and general over-sharing) would put me off big time. Even if I wasn’t GC, it would put me off and I wouldn’t touch these people with a barge pole.

[leafinthewind]

Totally agree that this is v sector specific. My broader question is about the funding set-up - though I recognise this is most relevant to STEM and least relevant to Humanities. As GCandProud and acfree124 point out, when funding ends posts end. But that means endless churn, endless building and re-building of teams and expertise. It's so incredibly inefficient. Universities don't/can't invest in building expertise in a particular area over the longer term. Once a funded "centre" ends, the best, most mobile staff quickly drift away. Funding doesn't very often meet its stated aim of setting up research teams/expertise for the future. Instead research and expertise follow the money wherever it goes. I'm feeling this right now because I'm in a centre which turns into a pumpkin in July...

[LaChanticleer]

I think that he feels that he has to say yes to everything to ensure that his contract is renewed and I think that he has been treated v shoddily - there is a permanent vacancy in the team and he is doing a good job. That is completely different to PGR roles and genuine fixed term roles.

Yes, I see this difference too. Are we supposed not to employ postdocs on projects?

A big blow up (mostly armchair Twitter radicals) in my discipline a few months ago, where a (very lucky) teaching-only lecturer got bought out to work on someone else's big grant for 3 years as a researcher. The department advertised a replacement for this bought out post, as a fixed-term, teaching only, post fr 3 years. There was a huge protest - saying that the university was exploitative, etc etc etc. It was so ridiculous - and it came from people who had themselves employed postdocs on their own grants.

Total hypocrisy. My first post was a teaching-only fixed-term post - it got me my next job. Which was permanent and teaching & research.

[Alaimo]

As an outsider it's a bit depressing to see the 'of course this is the way academia works' attitude. I don't work in the UK, and the country where I work also has problems with precarious employment, but unlike the UK there are also quite a few researchers employed on permanent contracts here (I am one).

We can apply for funding for our own projects and if we don't have sufficient funding to make up 1fte we fill our time with other work that needs doing: teaching, admin, contributing to someone else's project, etc. It's not a perfect system and it requires quite a lot of coordination from PIs and departmental admin to make sure everyone has neither too little or too much work for their contracted hours, but it does greatly reduce the number of fixed term contracts. Now I think about, this is probably quite similar to the way research centers in the UK work as well: despite being largely reliant on fixed-term grants income they somehow manage to employ people on permanent contracts and make it work.

[questconnect]

I saw a tweet this morning from one UCU branch expressing compassion for people who would be returning to work with non-striking colleagues. I so wanted to tweet, how does it feel for those non-striking colleagues working with people who don't seem to give a flying f* that UCU is unable to support women or even know what one is. But I wasn't brave enough.

And @GCAndProud - on the 'would get paid more in the private sector,' I have had many of those conversations with some of the .... less impressive, as you put it, and had to keep very quiet (while sometimes thinking this might be the ONLY place in which you'd get paid at all)! And for the avoidance of doubt, I would apply the same skepticism to myself. I doubt that I would get paid as much in the private sector or at least not in a job I would actually want to do.

[GCAndProud]

@Alaimo

As an outsider it's a bit depressing to see the 'of course this is the way academia works' attitude. I don't work in the UK, and the country where I work also has problems with precarious employment, but unlike the UK there are also quite a few researchers employed on permanent contracts here (I am one).

We can apply for funding for our own projects and if we don't have sufficient funding to make up 1fte we fill our time with other work that needs doing: teaching, admin, contributing to someone else's project, etc. It's not a perfect system and it requires quite a lot of coordination from PIs and departmental admin to make sure everyone has neither too little or too much work for their contracted hours, but it does greatly reduce the number of fixed term contracts. Now I think about, this is probably quite similar to the way research centers in the UK work as well: despite being largely reliant on fixed-term grants income they somehow manage to employ people on permanent contracts and make it work.

I definitely think that there can be changes made to how academia operates, including some permanent research contracts (but I think there actually are some of these roles, albeit not many). The problem is that this will definitely not be possible for everyone because, in soc-sci at least, grant-income is not what funds the department - student fees are. Staff who want to research need to balance this with teaching and admin (which is what most of us do, to be fair). The issue comes when someone does receive grant funding and needs research-support in the form of a post-doc or PhD. In my field (where big grants are rare, even for profs), it's not financially viable to have permanent RAs who don't teach. We have a few post-docs and Leverhulme fellows but those are also fixed term and I can't see how they can't be. A big big problem is also the huge increase in PhD students, including those who self-fund. The majority of the hourly paid work in my dept is done by PhD students. How can a student become a permanent staff member? I think their conditions are often pretty shit and need to be better but the harsh reality is that there are nowhere near enough jobs in the sector for all to get one. Again, this is something that cannot be changed. It's an uncomfortable truth that more senior academics use PhD completions as a way to get promoted, even though there is little hope of most of them getting a job afterwards. Reforming academia would mean putting a stop to this. However, most senior academics won't like that because it means they can't get relatively cheap work on their funded projects and that they will struggle to be bought out of teaching.

UCU's attitudes seems to be unis are all rich and can afford this, when the reality is far more complex and not simply in the control of the institutions. This is also why opening up membership to PhD students is questionable because we do not 'stand together'. In fact, a more apt description is that senior academics stand ON PhD students to get ahead. Pretending that isn't the case helps nobody.

And while there are other countries where precarity is not as widespread, in many of those (eg Germany), entry into academia is incredibly competitive and the vast majority of those working on precarious contracts here wouldn't have a hope in hell of a foot in the door over there.

[GCAndProud]

@questconnect

I saw a tweet this morning from one UCU branch expressing compassion for people who would be returning to work with non-striking colleagues. I so wanted to tweet, how does it feel for those non-striking colleagues working with people who don't seem to give a flying f* that UCU is unable to support women or even know what one is. But I wasn't brave enough.

And *@GCAndProud* - on the 'would get paid more in the private sector,' I have had many of those conversations with some of the .... less impressive, as you put it, and had to keep very quiet (while sometimes thinking this might be the ONLY place in which you'd get paid at all)! And for the avoidance of doubt, I would apply the same skepticism to myself. I doubt that I would get paid as much in the private sector or at least not in a job I would actually want to do.

Yes, seeing as many members of their HEC and indeed the GS herself, engage in targeting female colleagues for wrongthink, I don't think they have given the slightest thought to how many of us feel. I personally dislike working with people who sign letters to push a female professor out of the profession for daring to say that women exist but hey, I just have to get on with it. Hopefully the strikers can do the same.

I also apply those standards to myself. I have worked in the private sector for a brief period actually. I didn't earn megabucks and it was very stressful. I don't kid myself that I would be CEO of some corporation if I wasn't an SL because I know I would be terrible at that job and wouldn't enjoy it. I think if one has a firm belief that one could do much better in the private sector, the only thing for it is to leave and take that higher salary.

(I saw one 'activist' on twitter saying that she regularly gets headhunted by US institutions who want to pay her three times her UK salary (okaaaay then, I'm sure that happens) but has always held out because she thought her USS pension was so good. Regardless of the fact that this sounds like UTTER fantasy, it just shows her to be really really stupid because who the hell would give up that payrise because of a pension?).

[LaChanticleer]

And while there are other countries where precarity is not as widespread, in many of those (eg Germany), entry into academia is incredibly competitive and the vast majority of those working on precarious contracts here wouldn't have a hope in hell of a foot in the door over there.

I know the German system, and while for the lucky few mostly men who get funded to do PhDs, the funding is a salary, they also do an enormous amount of dogsbody work for the established staff.

And lectureship positions with a clearly laid out career progression (eg. L to SL to AssocProf to Prof) is much much much harder.

And applications to tenured positions which I've reviewed for departments in Europe have applicants who would be qualified as SLs or Professors here.

It is far far far tougher - possibly because, if you ARE successful, it is a very nice job. A professor who has the status of Beamter ( less frequently Beamtin) can't go n strike, but has staff, a good pension, and a good deal of status ...