To be stressed out about pressure to strike

[peppapighastakenovermylife]

Without saying too much, my 'organisation' has announced strike action.

I really do not want to do it but feel awful at not. I wouldnt actually have to cross a picket line or anything (can simply work at home) but feel like I 'should' strike.

The strike is over our pensions. I understand the impact but feel that I can't worry about something now that will happen in probably 35 - 40 years time. I feel pretty lucky to even be able to afford to pay anything into a pension, let alone a company one. The returns are still better than other private pensions. However I understand why some are striking.

It is potentially two days strike. I cannot afford to lose that money. I am the main wage earner and just come off SMP. If I strike food will either be going on the credit card with no clear means of paying it off soon. There are more pressing issues such as redundancy, fuel costs, reductions in tax credits and so on looming. I feel like I need to worry about now rather than way in the future and do not have the 'luxury' that many well paid members of staff might have of not really noticing the loss of a days pay.

Would you strike? Have you gone on strike in the past? I am too 'young' (I wish ) to have really been in this situation before

Top rate tax payers.

Look, my beloved DP is an academic, I'm trying to be one too if the PhD goes well and all... it's a brilliant job that is a lot tougher than many people give credit to. He has to juggle a whole platter of different responsibilities - teaching, preparation for teaching, research, admin positions - (and is currently looking exceptionally gorgeous growling over a laptop with a bottle of chianti in the corner) BUT there is no money left to pay for pensions, pay rises etc and until people stop seeing universities/higher education as either a tool for social mobility or a 'right' for as many 18 year olds that wish to go and allow them to return to elite institutions... well, too many students too little money too big a debt.

Does this mean my whole Uni is a scab uni?

HappiestBlonde good on your DH! Especially re 'what would he tell his students'
I lost all respect for DS2's teacher when she went on strike. How could I explain to my 8 year old, that his articulate teacher, in a cushy white collar job, was throwing her toys out of her pram, when striking was the only means his coal miner great-grandparents had to make their point, and that in her case 'withdrawing her labour 'demonstrated just how un professional she was.

Thanks MrsGuy, I'm proud of him for caring about his students and realising that there really is no alternative, unless people want the £120million we pay per day on interest repayments of our debt alone to rise.

Onlion - that is such a ridiculous, horrible term that has no place in modern day situation.

happiest please read the above thread

I have.

MrsG, the point of a union-organised strike is precisely that those who are in relatively powerful and comfortable situations (people like Happiest's DH, judging from his 'low hours' job) stand up as part of a mass response, because otherwise the less fortunate will be trampled on while they sit back all nice and comfy. Obviously the people in exploitative, hourly paid, deviously constructed fixed term contracts don't have the same clout and cannot exert the same leverage without some back up. That is the whole point of a union.

Ohhhh sorry missed a recent chunk

Hmm dunno Mrs Guy of Gisbourne, maybe you could have told your ds a bit about empathy, solidarity, standing up for yourself, the history of strikes, the reasons why people may feel pushed into a position where withdrawing their labour is the only way to make their point...? You could have explained to him that you disagreed with what teacher was doing, but that she would have a different opinion, etc etc...
It's ridiculous to make comparisons between teachers and miners where the miners are hard pressed horny handed sons of toil and teachers are spoilt brats - for a start what makes you think a miner is not articulate? Rather a snobbish assumption. And as for teaching being cushy, well yes and no, it's no easy ride- have you ever done it?

What Viola said

DP is early 30s, he is by no means a Prof in a comfy positions whatsoever - the low teaching hours are a result of hard won research grants and doing humanities not science or similar.

What about solidarity with the rest of the country, tax payers, your children who will be paying back this debt?

Hi Peppa, late to teh party, but just to say, yanbu.
in my profession, as in yours, it is difficult to find a union who would not be prepared to strike but yet the union affords protection if a malicious claim was made against you. so it is a really difficult call.
we also had a strike a few years back regarding pensions. personally, i felt that the pension changes had to be made (having seen what happened to DH private sector pension thought i was getting off lightly tbh and also from a personal point of view felt that by the time i retired decades hence it would be far worse than that anyway). i voted no but lots of colleagues in the union thought no but didn't vote
in the end many of the people in their twenties and thirties did work and actually i was granted a maternity exemption! as i was quite heavily pregnant.
the next time there was a union ballot the general secretary was voted out by members and there has not been a strike since. i have to admit if there were repeated strikes i would withdraw from the union and try to seek private liabilty insurance.
interestingly where my dh works there was protracted dispute between union and management and almost all in his department withdrew from the union as they did not agree with what the union was doing. years later the department are paying as the strikes at the time meant that some new equipment was set up in a sister plant elsewhere in the eu and now they are getting more work as a result of their better equipment.
generally i do not agree with strikes in public service except for the most extreme cases.
i do think that many people calling for strikes do not represent the views of the majority - who are sadly too apathetic to vote.

happiestblonde everyone in the country is a taxpayer, including anyone who goes on strike.

should add that in my job i expect that everyone did the work at some other point anyway - it was still there to be done

You were the one who described it as a comfy number. For every winner of a 'hard won' research grant, there are many others of equal calibre for whom the dice didn't fall the right way. You have yourself just indicated, with that phrase, that his position is unsual.

Academics are tax payers, as you keep pointing out to your own chagrin. Insisting on a better negotiation around USS reform is not going bring about the ruin of this country. Letting your less fortunate colleagues hang out to dry cannot be construed in any way as an act of solidarity.

Happiestblonde university lecturers are front-line staff because the British economy can't depend on manufacturing (or coal-mining) any more. In order for our economy to turn money over, we need to move into 'knowledge economy' ie we need to produce lots of highly educated graduates who are problem solvers, not technically skilled people willing to stand on a production line all day.

I am not sure because I don't get all communications from the union, but I think this strike is not about We Want More Pension Money. It is being called because the universities pension fund are making decisions about how our pensions should be cut without consulting the workforce or the union as representatives of the workforce at all. We only want to know what's going on and have a say in how our own pensions are to be managed.

article on strike www.ucu.org.uk/index.cfm?articleid=5375

Yes, I have been a teacher - a job with transferable skills, whereas typcically the coal miner had no power, no voice. I have every sympathy and respect for the brave pioneers of the the labour movement, but not for those who jump on the bandwagon at no risk to themselves or tehri livelihoods.

Erm grants are competitive meaning the best get them, it is not a situation where they do not go to those of equal calibre who are 'less fortunate'.

Politix - I was using his words about front line staff. I guess he feels that life and death public sector workers (nurses etc) are a more urgent concern.

Either way, he's not crossing the picket line Tuesday or Thursday and I'm proud of him for that.

WRT my tax payers comments, of course public sector workers pay taxes but they then see that back as wages. I have more pity for us in the private sector paying high rates and also facing redundancies, lower pensions etc who crack on with it rather than throwing toys out of the pram because the country cannot afford pensions anymore.

How anyone could vote Labour again following this mess is beyond me

Oops is crossing picket line

' grants are competitive meaning the best get them, it is not a situation where they do not go to those of equal calibre who are 'less fortunate'.

happiest - it would be really nice to think that. However after sitting in on, and having colleagues sit on grant awarding panels...well...it is really not as simple as the best people get them.

Of course a good proportion of it is the quality of the grant and you. However it is also who you know, politics, whether you know anyone on the panel, the personal situations of those on the panel...any number of factors.

And going along the lines of 'behind every good man is a great woman'...well behind every academic who gets a grant there is usually a very hard working team.

Exactly Peppa. There are many factors behind the outcome of a competition. I teach at a very prestigious institution, but nobody gets here, as either staff or student, without a significant element of luck. Anyone who thinks they achieve great things purely on merit is being arrogant. Anyone who has sat on academic committees can see how fine the details are which mean one person gets a big break, the other not. Yes, merit is a big factor. But there are many others, as in every aspect of life, and anyone with an ounce of humility has to acknowledge that.

Huge lots of luck and all sorts of things other than merit (although merit matters a lot) in most things.

You can also change and increase chances and luck. It's an interseting subject to study. Positive people improve their chances. I remember my daughter picking up about 60 competition leaflets at an air port aged 8 because she was so sure she'd win (cruise down the Nile for 2). She picked up the top prize leaflet in the end. The pessimist would say no point in trying I'll fail. About 80% of things I try fail but I keep optimistic and the other 20% will do. All will be well and all manner of things will be well... Radio 4 had a programme on luck last year.... Then to contniue the story she applied to university to read a related subject and started her UCAS application personal statement with something about that win.. so the luck perhaps carried on into her time at university as she got the place she wanted as that trip had enthused her about the subject .... (mind you the merit of the rest of the exams etc I'm sure counted for a lot more than that little anecdote)

His AHRC grant that bought a year of research leave certainly had no team behind it, no colleagues on any committees... He's just exceptional

Luck egalitarianism is fairly interesting as a totally different discussion point, Cohen Arneson etc

So he had no referees? No institutional support? What makes you think we don't understand how these things work, happiest? Did he not have a PhD supervisor who guided him a few years ago, and a previous grant to fund his PhD? And who is covering his teaching now? Shouldn't they have a right to decent terms and conditions, since they are part of the whole machine which makes it possible for him to do this? No academic works in isolation.