Lecturers crossing picket lines

[angrygoat2]

I’m an older postgrad student, and a few of my lectures this week have been affected by strikes. I am very sympathetic but also haven’t done a huge amount of research/reading around it, so forgive me if anything I say comes across as uninformed.

One of my lecturers will continue to teach on strike days. This person is very
prominent, both within the university and in their field. Widely cited, published a few mainstream-ish books, frequent speaking engagements, and working on a number of well-funded projects. Friends working in the field often ask “do you have xyz as a lecturer?” So definitely a heavyweight, and probably in a better financial situation than most of their colleagues.

Why isn’t this person striking? Surely they have very little to lose by showing solidarity given their status? Unfortunately they usually treat students as an afterthought (and often use them to do unpaid work under the guise of experience/exposure) so I very much doubt it’s for our benefit.

I’ve discussed this with other students and so far, no one has a compelling answer. Not trying to be judgmental - genuinely confused - but not sure I’m brave enough to ask to the prof’s face. Any insights would be appreciated!

That's not true. It used to be, but the law changed a few years ago to make strike action exempt from the category of unauthorised absence for Tier 2 visa holders.

Yes I appreciate that this may be the thinking. But my uni aren’t going to be making my personal learning experience better. That might sound selfish but it’s true, and that’s how I think of it, and why I find it frustrating. A lot of the learning experience is a bit rubbish but it isn’t helped by strikes during which a whole text is removed from the module with no option for catch up sessions or similar.

I’m a non striking lecturer for a few reasons.

firstly I’m not in the union. A lot of people do not like the politics and the current leadership of the UCU. Secondly my students had practical exams today and I did not want to let them down.

i talked to a colleague today and he said he wasn’t prepared to strike because if he was that unhappy with the pay and pension he’d leave and get a different job.

i don’t actually have an issue with my pay or pension. Now the workload is a different story!

i don’t actually have an issue with my pay or pension. Now the workload is a different story!

Yes @DohaDragon that is an important distinction. I think that - in spite of an unmanageable workload - we actually do quite congenial work. It’s not like we’re working in a chicken factory.

Although I think academics have always been paid way below what we might expect with the qualifications we have. There’s a discussion else thread about training more doctors and people are shocked that doctors’ starting salaries are only a bit higher than teachers’. When you consider that a “starting” academic will have about double tne years of training and qualifications of a starting doctor, and the salary is lower than a teacher or doctor, you do get a sense of how we are valued by our society.

There’s a somewhat paradoxical attitude to academics in the UK, if MN is anything to go by. Read the Higher Education forum ( if your blood pressure can stand it) and you see that the UK’s parents desperately want the”best” university experience for their DVs. But they despise the academics who are the ones who make that experience possible.

Until the UK general public sort that out for themselves and realise how bloody lucky they are to have a world class education system at their finger tips, I doubt any government will treat us with the respect we deserve.

I didn't strike this time. I'm a bit ambivalent about it. At my uni the strike is about pensions (a pension that I won't be getting as it was a different scheme by the time I was employed) I do believe that colleagues should be given what they were promised, but I've already lost several days of pay over the last 4 years striking about it, about 2 weeks in total. I feel really bad for students who have had such a rough few years, and I love teaching, especially the class I have today, so I came in. I'm on a precarious contract (fixed term) others in my dept are on variable hours contracts which are essentially zero hours situations. I'd be more keen to strike on that issue. I'll probably do a few days in the spring term.

Given you description of your lecturer these might not be his reasons.

I agree. I also did my UG in my 30s and the amount of ridiculous complaints I heard from my cohort were unfuckingbelievable. They want spoon feeding and their arses wiped for them.

I didn’t know if it was an age/life experience difference, or something else, but my facial expressions probably said it all.

The majority simply don’t do the work, don’t turn up to lectures/labs/seminars/workshops and get angry when they barely scrape a 3:3.

“Lectures are boring, make them more interactive ” - they make up 30% of the course. 60% is lab based. 10% is workshops/seminars. There are going to be parts of the course that are dry, it’s fucking STEM.

“The 2 hour gaps in the timetable are too long” - I groaned loudly at that one. Grab some food? Go to the on campus bar? Or, wild idea - go the library and study?

To name just a few that made me actually groan out loud at them. They’ve got worse since the Pandemic too.

I work in HE (non academic) and at my university only 12% of eligible staff are actually striking based on today’s turnout. The vast majority are not.
The university is on its knees financially and most people recognise that while the pay increases are woeful the University can’t actually afford to pay more. We’ve already had redundancies galore with more to come. The calls for more pay might be justified but are also entirely unrealistic and it’s not well supported.

The problem is UCU’s obsession with gender identity ideology. We’re in the middle of strike action but the dominant UCU faction has nothing better to do than to publicise a consultation about the NHS treatment of gender dysphoric children, getting their members to flood the consultation with responses that toe a certain line. If UCU could just, for one moment, focus on pay, pensions and working conditions instead of their creepy obsession with medically transitioning children, maybe they’d be more successful? Just saying …

ucucommons.org/2022/11/28/trans-healthcare-in-england-a-call-for-solidarity-by-sunday-4th-dec/

Interesting to see that @ExUCU and I totally agree with you.

I find that sometimes, I try to attend every seminar, and for most there is usually only half the class present. At my uni one thing really annoys me - part of my course is workshopping. We split the class in half, one week group a submits and the class feeds back, the next week opposite. The amount of people who only show up on their week is staggering. It makes me really resentful - most of these people are students with few responsibilities/time
ties. I’m a busy person but I took time to review your work and give good feedback on it, so why don’t you show up the next week to reciprocate? I don’t think it should be allowed repeatedly, I think the workshop teacher should be saying ‘if you don’t participate in the workshops you can’t benefit from them.’

But like you said there is an age difference so I try to just think it’s life experience etc. But then I look at my age group and there’s plenty of arseholes in there too!

@Kanaloa I worked at a uni with this kind of workshopping that depended on student to student feedback - and providing feedback carried marks toward the final course mark - for just this reason.

Slightly off subject, but my mum was an academic, and it was common for her and her colleagues to officially strike, but be working at home anyway. Seemed the ultimate irony.

I think this continuous strike after strike, never achieving anything but claiming every time that this time will be different is a result of a lot of senior academics leaving UCU and being replaced by phd students who work in precarious roles. It’s well known that there is an over recruitment of phd students, largely to bolster the careers of permanent staff (as they can cover teaching, are cheaper than post docs, completions count for promotion etc). It’s frustrating that this isn’t acknowledged- instead vague notions of “evil managers” are talked about. Literally all of academia is built on exploiting some people for the benefit of others. Waving a placard with your dog in tow while wearing a pink hat for one day won’t change anything. It’s amazing that people just refuse to see the truth and willingly lose pay for day after day after day.
Striking in November when the USS valuation won’t happen for months is totally and utterly pointless but people don’t want to admit that. The unis can cope with a few token days of disruption. The low level of overall UCU membership among staff also means that it makes little difference that all institutions are taking action now rather than just those who crossed the threshold. Also, even among members, the majority don’t declare taking strike action (even some of the really vocal ones).
I predict the strike fund running very very dry this time around too, given the cost of living crisis.
And if UCU got their wish of an above inflation pay rise there would be mass redundancies. Some universities have a lot of cash but some are on the brink of financial collapse. The claim that “they can afford it” is incredibly simplistic.
Finally, Jo Grady gets paid 130k a year and DOESN’T lose her salary when standing on the performative picket lines.

Basically donating money to your employers. The total opposite of what strike action is meant to achieve. But yes, this is what a lot of people do. Or they work at the weekend to make up for what they missed, or late into the night the day before. Totally pointless.

People can have different opinions. Many years ago I actually left a public sector union because it voted to strike, and I didn't agree with that decision.

@GCGCandproud exactly! I think ucu is being used to promote grady within the tuc. And it's working

DP is a senior lecturer and didn't strike. His reason was because he was going to have to rearrange student assessments/lab time, which was going to be impossible so would have had a negative impact on his students. He disagreed with the reasons for the strike and thinks that they should be focusing on the ridiculously high salaries of principals/vice principals.

One of the things I find bizarre is the lack of acknowledgement/realisation that striking actually has a net positive effect on employers’ finances. Institutions receive their funding at the start of the academic year. So what is lost when academics and other uni staff don’t work? There isn’t a direct link between withdrawal of labour and loss of revenue which is one reason I think that the strikes have had little to no impact.

Slightly off subject, but my mum was an academic, and it was common for her and her colleagues to officially strike, but be working at home anyway. Seemed the ultimate irony

That’s because the work doesn’t magically go away. You still have to do it sometime.

@Acinonyx2

So it should! But in mine I don’t think it does count, because people repeatedly miss it and get away with it. So annoying. Anyway I’m derailing now 😂 can’t help spilling all my uni annoyances when I get the chance!

The other issue is that the people that have to deal with the admin issues of missed classes (e.g. at exam boards or when dealing with the NSS) are academic or academic related staff who may have been on strike themselves
Imo academics striking is like telling a toddler that if they don't stop throwing the sofa cushions around you are going to refuse yourself that gin and tonic before supper

My university is clearly rattled by the prospect of students being able to claim a partial refund of fees. The OIA upheld some claims during the last strike and universities are expecting more claims and class actions this time. Of course, the money to cover refunds will come out of departmental budgets, so one can easily imagine who will suffer when this happens.

I know you say you didn’t mean to come across as judgemental but why are you discussing in depth with your fellow students about this professor so much rather than just asking them about their reason for or against striking - or do you realise it would be really inappropriate and not really any of your business? As people have said there could be many different reasons why they are not striking - but you won’t know unless you ask them and discussing this with other students is going to get you a reputation as a gossiping busy body.

There are many academics at my institution who are not striking but I’ve never thought it was an appropriate topic of conversation to have with colleagues.

Imo academics striking is like telling a toddler that if they don't stop throwing the sofa cushions around you are going to refuse yourself that gin and tonic before supper

Brilliant, @drwitch

If this goes on into 2023, I'm going to have to leave the union ...

I’m certain this will continue into 2023. Whatever you decide to do, I’d claim from the strike fund the minute you are able to do so.