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AIBU?

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Original poster

To think if you're on strike you shouldn't get paid?

98 replies

ClaraLaraLaLa · 03/03/2018 10:51

www.theguardian.com/education/2018/mar/02/uk-universities-threaten-punish-striking-staff-cancelled-lectures

I'm strongly in favour of the right to strike etc, I have participated in strikes myself before, for which I was docked a day's pay, as I expected.

Surely part of the point of going on strike it to show that you feel so strongly about the issue that you are prepared to forgo a day's pay in order to make your point?

OP posts:
Rosamund1 · 03/03/2018 12:02

OP you have very little understanding of the history of workers’ rights. Educate yourself.

Starryskiesinthesky · 03/03/2018 12:03

This is one of those threads started by someone who is ignorant of the issues.

corythatwas · 03/03/2018 12:04

We do have a hardship fund for our union and quite a few old alumni are beginning to divert their donations into that. The problem is that we also have so many academic and support staff on low-paid/temporary/part-time/zero hour contracts these days that a hardship fund would have to be very large to reach around.

What I've found is that people outside the university have a kind of image of the kind of Oxbridge don who features in Inspector Morse-type television, swanning in a comfortable college drinking old port. In the meantime, in real life, many of us are doing the same job, producing the same research, on McDonald's wages.

corythatwas · 03/03/2018 12:06

AhhhhThatsBass, can you think of any other industry where you can hire a worker on low pay to work Monday and Tuesday and then threaten to dock the whole of that money if he doesn't turn up to work for free on Wednesday? Because that is what my VC has just told me he intends to do.

kalapattar · 03/03/2018 12:10

So the University is

a) Not paying people for the days they go on strike (which is reasonable)

b) Expecting the people who go on strike to make up the work later by doing extra unpaid work.

That is totally unacceptable. Maybe the students should get a refund as they haven't got the work they paid for from the University but the lecturers shouldn't have to do extra work.

Otherwise that defeats the purpose of a strike.

TheRagingGirl · 03/03/2018 12:13

We’re going to be docked a proportion of our pay simply for working to contract. It might make people realise just how much time academics give to universities for free.

Although I write this as I’m travelling on a Saturday through the aftermath of Storm Emma to get to a speaking engagement. So I’m working on a Saturday but nowhere is this recorded or am I given time off in lieu.

There used to be compensations for the late start to paid work in an academic career, and the long unpaid hours, and the low salaries in relation to qualifications, abilities and expertise. One of the compensations was a modest but comfortably secure pension.

Now that is being taken from us.

TheRagingGirl · 03/03/2018 12:16

And frankly, if students were diligent in actually attending lectures and tutorials, I might have a bit more sympathy re their claims for “compensation”.

kalapattar · 03/03/2018 12:18

If work places start treating their employees like this, then that's yet another way to lose any good will. People don't want to work there and the place gets a bad reputation. Or even more of a bad reputation.

I've worked in places with bosses with attitudes like this and it sure as hell stops any goodwill from employees.

DeathStare · 03/03/2018 12:20

Perhaps unions need to have an emergency/hardship fund to support these workers during a strike?

Most unions do. In this instance strikers can apply for £50 a day from their union from their 4th striking day onwards.

reddington · 03/03/2018 12:23

To think if you're on strike you shouldn't get paid?

If you’re on strike you should be fucking sacked!

SoupyNorman · 03/03/2018 12:26

There is a legal right to strike in this country. You cannot be sacked for participating in a lawful industrial action.

Stompythedinosaur · 03/03/2018 12:30

If you’re on strike you should be fucking sacked!

Really? We should just be able to make any changes to anyone's contracts we like and they should not be able to protest this?

Spoken like a true fascist.

NewYearNewMe18 · 03/03/2018 12:31

I thought you got strike pay through your union ?

corythatwas · 03/03/2018 12:33

reddington, have you read the thread? Our employers are cutting teaching staff whilst running up enormous expenses bills, they are using dodgy figures to change the terms of the pensions we have contributed to for years, they are threatening to dock entire pay for days when we work our contracted hours- and we are the ones who should get fucking sacked!

Do you suppose we haven't already tried to raise these questions through all channels available? Do you suppose we haven't been told to shut up ("this question is not relevant to the board, I now declare the meeting closed"). Yes, I have been told that cutting student-facing staff is not relevant to the board that is there to oversee teaching and student welfare.

That's why I am striking: because I want there to BE a university in years to come, I don't want all the best colleagues leaving for abroad or taking up other jobs, I want students to know that staff are proud to teach them! I am bloody proud of my students!

kalapattar · 03/03/2018 12:35

Now that is how you derail a thread Grin

frogsoup · 03/03/2018 12:35

Reddington without our forebears taking industrial action you'd have no sick pay, no weekends, no paid holiday, no pensions, in fact pretty much no labour rights whatsoever - they aren't handed out like sweeties by employers you kow. You are just being goady I know, but all the same, you should be ashamed of yourself.

FlippyFloppyNow · 03/03/2018 12:38

reddington I believe in reasoned discussion and debate so please explain your logic for your statement

HuckfromScandal · 03/03/2018 12:39

If you’re on strike you should be fucking sacked!

I have read a lot of ignorant things on this site, but jeezo - this is the worst.
Facist, unintelligent and uninformed. Where the hell do you think that the rights you have as a worker came from???? Unions - that’s where.

That has made me so 😡

Shivermetimbers0112 · 03/03/2018 12:41

There’s nothing at all new about pay deductions for partial performance. So when UCU call for the action short of strike to include a boycott of marking (which they almost certainly will) do you think there will be no consequence for this? Harsh perhaps but true and legally correct.

kath6144 · 03/03/2018 12:42

And frankly, if students were diligent in actually attending lectures and tutorials

Please dont tar all students with the same brush.

My DS is in his second year doing a science, has missed virtually no lectures, labs or tutorials in almost 5 terms (apart from when he had YII interviews, then he re arranged labs etc, but never just bunked off) as is the case with lots of his friends, both from school and at uni.

They want to learn, pass exams with good marks (he got firsts in all exams, due to work ethic rather than being exceptionally bright), get good jobs etc.

All lectures from one of his core modules this semester are on strike days. So he wont get any of them. No notes online, I am not sure how he is supposed to learn the subject from a book if he isn't sure what the lecturer will cover. Yet they have been told they will still be examined on all modules as papers already been set?

Does this mean they will all need to re-sit this exam in August, or all the year group fail their 2nd year? He could ask for notes from a 3rd year, but the lecturer may have changed topics this year.

I am sure there are plenty who do miss lectures, but not all students are the same and yet on the strike threads it seems a familiar theme to say they all do.

SoupyNorman · 03/03/2018 12:42

Working to contract, as we’ve been instructed to do, is not partial performance. How can it be?

Nobody expects there to be no consequences for a marking boycott, btw. That’s the nuclear scenario.

TheRagingGirl · 03/03/2018 12:43

Thatcher’s children and grandchildren, sadly

Stompythedinosaur · 03/03/2018 12:44

I thought you got strike pay through your union ?

You can apply for it if strike action will leave you in financial hardship. If you can manage withiut you are meant to leave what funding there is for people who can't.

Shivermetimbers0112 · 03/03/2018 12:44

Soupy.
But if you are reasonably requested to reschedule a class, or more likely make your teaching material available, and you refuse then that is partial performance. Your contract includes, as they all do, an implied term that you will comply with reasonable instructions.

TheRagingGirl · 03/03/2018 12:46

There’s a debate over whether what is reasonable though.