Not to want to be referred to as ‘Comrade’

[Shellacbabe]

I work for a university and many uni staff are on strike this week. I am not a member of the union so am not on strike, and disagree with a few of the things that the strike is fighting for, but my main gripe with the union is that many members still hail each other as ‘comrade’. Can we agree that communism is dead, and that’s a very good thing, and referring to people as ‘comrades’ has no place in a modern society?

If I was particularly fussed on pay or working conditions I’d get a job out with the educational sector as I had before. I just find it a bit hard to walk past a couple of people holding placards to get to my desk and have them moaning about crossing a picket when they don’t seem to want me to join them cause I am not a socialist.

I've been a member of the Labour Party for years and those on the hard left often use 'comrade' as a way of testing out whether you are one of them or not.

Its always made my skin crawl.

Also, you’re telly contradicting yourself, with the ‘we should change the numbers of black female professors’, but you won’t actually do anything/unite with anyone who could actually make a difference on that.
Also, your pensions comment is pretty naive. In HE, it has always been the payoff for a lower salary (compared to qualifications and experience), and is essentially deferred salary. If you can’t see that an estimated 35% cut in expected pension isn’t a good thing, then I suspect you might have other money/a partner with a higher salary. I am single, and have no family money. I’m from a bog standard, working class, Scottish comprehensive school background. I’ve got MA(Hons), MSc & PhD qualifications, and have worked my way up in HE over 20 years - doing an average 50-60 hour weeks. I fucking well deserve my pension, which I’ve paid into all that time, and went into in good faith…. And I’m not the only one; my colleagues (or comrades?!) deserve that too.

@Boood

I was quite taken aback when I went to a WPUK meeting and a lot of the women were calling everyone “comrade”. Presumably if you’ve had a lot of involvement with the Labour party and unions it’s completely normal, but I agree with OP and others saying that outside those circles it is perceived as a bit hardcore. Fine if that’s what you’re looking for, but if it isn’t, it’s off-putting. I wasn’t entirely sure whether to laugh or run away!

Laugh as you run away?

To be honest I find your position somewhat surprising as you work in a university, presumably not as an academic. I'd hope that an academic would understand that language is constantly evolving and its meaning is understood not only in the language itself but also the context that it is being used, including time, place and individual.

For what it's worth, I dont personally agree with strikes and will cross a picket line, but I equally respect others right to strike. Sadly it didn't help the miners after all.

@AAAAAGHH

Take a chill pill comrade

😂

Surely they are calling you a filthy scab not comrade?

@Shellacbabe

If I was particularly fussed on pay or working conditions I’d get a job out with the educational sector as I had before. I just find it a bit hard to walk past a couple of people holding placards to get to my desk and have them moaning about crossing a picket when they don’t seem to want me to join them cause I am not a socialist.

I hope you refuse any pay rises and improvements to working conditions that the unions win, then? I work in education and luckily the majority of the workforce, by far, are union members. But the ones who aren't will happily take the pay rises negotiated by those awful, socialist unions... go figure.

I’d join the union to fight for more diverse professors if it wasn’t actively excluding me in its socialist nature, but as another poster has pointed out, trade unions are for socialists and that’s not me.

People are living longer and defined benefit schemes are getting less and less affordable. Either the contributions are upped (which union members don’t want) or the whole scheme goes bust.

@Shellacbabe

I’d join the union to fight for more diverse professors if it wasn’t actively excluding me in its socialist nature, but as another poster has pointed out, trade unions are for socialists and that’s not me.

People are living longer and defined benefit schemes are getting less and less affordable. Either the contributions are upped (which union members don’t want) or the whole scheme goes bust.

You are misrepresenting facts in order to justify your distorted view. Most of UCU members are far from socialists. As for the pensions' issue, I suggest you look into this more as it seems you are just spouting nonsense.

Presumably they are joking (as you are not striking)?

I’m not sure I’d say communism is dead in the world of academia. And no, not everyone will agree with you that it should be dead either!

Loving the references to the ‘Tooting Popular Front’ on here!

Well I don’t know about anyone else but from now on I’m calling all my colleagues comrade - I can’t wait

@Shellacbabe

The unions can do what they like, but they’d make much more progress if they cut the socialist nonsense and broadened their base a bit. You don’t have to be a socialist to see that 30 black female professors is a bad thing. You seem to have to be a socialist to join a union.

Nah, you shouldn’t have to be a socialist to join a union, they just tend to be more likely to join, surely?

Why don’t you join?

You should maybe have a look at the impact the changes to your pension scheme are going to have on your pension. You’d be absolutely insane to think that level of cuts was acceptable. How do you plan to live in old age?

People aren’t living longer BTW. Life expectancy is dropping.

YANBU. I grew up in communist Eastern Europe and it makes me want to puke.

@Shellacbabe

That’s my point. They are not uniting me because they are using terminology which in my eyes is only used by the hard left, and that’s not for me. But maybe I’ve studied too much Russian history and it’s coloured my use of the phrase in ways it hasn’t for others and I’m the weird one.

You'd have a point if they were using Tovarisch.

Comrade was used in France, Germany etc and eventually used in movies and books as a word attributed to the Russians. Who have never used it and they have their own word , even if they might've been influenced/inspired by comrade as a socialist concept.

Been there done that in terms of communism. Comrade and camaraderie/comradery were words for friend and friendship. Never anything else. The meaning you object to was the equivalent of tovarisch with a very similar spelling.

Socialist term ? Yes. Communist/Russian term? Nope, unless your base knowledge is American movies with Russian baddies.

Communism isn't dead. The British communist party is thriving, as is the Young Communist League. More and more people are getting fed up of the idiocy of Labour and the Tories.

Solidarity is the way forward.

But what would a scab know about that?

YANBU. I'd find it either distasteful or absurd. Possibly both.

The cuts to the pension mean it is still more generous than the vast majority of private sector pensions. Private sector employees do actually survive in retirement!

The universities want to reduce the defined benefit side of the pensions as defined benefit pensions schemes are a liability that swing from year to year from being a big cost to an all encompassing cost depending on the performance of the stock exchange. Do we want the funding university have to spend on research, education, student experience etc to purely be based on how the stock exchange is doing each year?

I’m fine with the down grade of the final sector pension scheme. Fighting it is futile. The sensible thing is to accept it BUT instead concentrate on asking for a 35% increase in pay to compensate.

Our union is brother and sister. I'd prefer comrade

"The sensible thing is to accept it BUT instead concentrate on asking for a 35% increase in pay to compensate."

I want some of what you're smoking, comrade!

Anyone who thinks communism is a good thing only has to look at the state of Ukraine 1930s

@ArseInTheCoOpWindow

Loving the references to the ‘Tooting Popular Front’ on here!

This is exactly what the term says to me. As a teenager, I went to a single Socialist Worker meeting. I’m afraid I just couldn’t take them seriously after Comrade Bob was invited to give a report on something or other.

@Shellacbabe

The cuts to the pension mean it is still more generous than the vast majority of private sector pensions. Private sector employees do actually survive in retirement!

The universities want to reduce the defined benefit side of the pensions as defined benefit pensions schemes are a liability that swing from year to year from being a big cost to an all encompassing cost depending on the performance of the stock exchange. Do we want the funding university have to spend on research, education, student experience etc to purely be based on how the stock exchange is doing each year?

I’m fine with the down grade of the final sector pension scheme. Fighting it is futile. The sensible thing is to accept it BUT instead concentrate on asking for a 35% increase in pay to compensate.

You do realise that people’s pensions are being forecast to be as small as £9-£11k in retirement? I will currently be allowed to take my pension at 67 and 9 months, after 42 years of paying into USS. I see myself working until I die, at this rate. I am on a standard G9 salary, so am fairly well paid , as universities go.

OP,I’m starting to think you’re a plant from UUK, or a journo, who is trying to be goady. I’ve never seen the sector as mad as this. Well, other than when the £9k fee was introduced in England. This will mean that people leave the sector in droves, and there won’t be people to educate and support students. It’s not as simple as just sucking it up, and trying to get a 35% (🤣) pay rise.