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!

Of course it will continue into next calendar year. I can't see anything has been won by UCU as a result of these three days, so I'm sure they will implement the rest of the plan as voted for.

People who cross pickets are the lowest of the low.

What an intelligent post. No actual engagement with any of the points made in the thread, I see. Are you an academic?

Yes, we’re really into nuanced argument here.

Thank you for letting us know, Rambam. Now back to work, that essay won’t write itself.

There’s a tweet today from Jo Grady saying there’s going to be action in the new year which is interesting given the earlier commitment from the unions not to escalate the dispute during the current negotiations.

There are also some tweets from UCU Commons and another group called UCU Solidarity that I hadn’t heard of before pressing for the announcement of the MAB and Feb strike dates.

On the one hand this seems premature but realistically I can’t see the employers granting a 12-13% pay increase so it’s probably inevitable.

If the Unis agree a 13% pay rise, there will be redundancies and recruitment freezes. Not all institutions are awash with cash and many will fold. If people want to stand on endless picket lines be my guest but I think hell will freeze over before the UCU’s (very vague) demands are met.

If unis don’t agree a pay rise there will be vacancies. It’s getting increasingly hard to recruit for various courses which need lecturers with industry experience as they can earn so much more in industry - engineering, architecture, nursing, paramedics, physio, numerous other allied health courses. It’s not unheard of to have no applications now when a lecturer post is advertised. 🤷‍♀️

I think that really depends on the discipline. There is still a glut of candidates in arts, humanities and some social sciences. Funnily enough, those disciplines also tend to be the most unionised in HE.

Oh absolutely. But if you were an architect who could earn 50k plus a year in practice are you going to apply for a 32k a year lecturing post or even an SL,post? A significant proportion of architect lecturers at my university aren’t qualified architects. Some have design degrees.🤷‍♀️

In fact there’s an advert out now and it says desirable to have an UG architecture degree (pg degree ideally) but other degrees accepted. You’re not a qualified architect until you’ve done the full 7 years, having the 3 year UG isn’t enough.

Nursing lecturers are now getting recruited 2 years post qualification because the days of having a lot of senior Band 7s and higher applying for lecturing posts seems to be in the past.

I’m a SL and I could certainly earn more going back to industry and am considering it. Shame because I enjoy the job.

Possibly they are not in the union that is striking. They may be in a different union, rendering them striking illegal, unless their union has given the LA the correct notice, usually 2 weeks. If other employees are not in striking union they aren't crossing a picket line. Only members who choose not to strike would be crossing a picket line. Other employees covering the work of a striking colleague could be perceived as breaking strike action or behaving against collective conduct. If so a complaint can be lodged to their union.

"a union member but can’t afford to get behind on three days of work (this is a very stressful and overlooked factor - the work is still there and usually needs to be caught up with)."

Is this not, in part what the industrial action is targeting, terms & conditions?

Yes it’s targeting workload but I agree if you strike unless it’s a lecture/seminar which you don’t undertake then the work needs to be caught up on.

if you’re not teaching on a strike day you might be marking. You can’t say well I would have marked 20 assignments today so I just won’t mark 20 out the cohort. You can’t say that you would have been screening ucas applications so you’ll just bin 50 applications without looking at them. You can’t say that you’re never going to not give academic support to the students who’d you’d arranged to see about an essay that day, you’d just have to rearrange it.

We usually have 200+ applications for lecturer positions. These come from all over the world, even places where the salaries and conditions are much better than the UK. Professorial recruitment is another matter because most people at that level have put down roots and may well have other people affected by their decision.

I echo what others said. Also even if there is an industry connected to the subject that is better paid, that doesn’t mean that it’s super hard to recruit in academia - see law for instance. People don’t tend to go to academia for the money. In history and social sciences, there is huge competition for jobs. I can guarantee that there won’t be vacancies. Hell, people are working on an HPL basis for absolute peanuts just to get a foot in the door. The unis know they will be fine on this front. It’s a lot easier to get into academia in the UK than other countries that pay more - the downside is that you’re more likely to be precarious. But it’s not like most academics in the UK would easily be able to snap up posts in Germany or the US because competition there is much more intense.

Is this not, in part what the industrial action is targeting, terms & conditions?

Yeah, but what are you going to do? Essays won't mark themselves, and grant applications often have deadlines ... It's shit, whichever way you look at it.

But the UCU Exec is not being pragmatic or practical. They're behaving like Rik from The Young Ones.