To have sympathy for academics facing redundancy but be worried about my third year student....?!

[Panicmode1]

My DD has had three lectures and one seminar this term because her lecturers are striking due to impending job cuts. I have massive sympathy for them (DH was made redundant over a year ago ...) but my daughter is paying a not insignificant sum to have a final year of study, yet isn't being taught anything. The faculty are sympathetic but the VC has fobbed them off about getting compensation (or any info about how and when this may be resolved).

Should there be a time limit on how long staff should be able to strike? She's effectively lost at least 1/3 of her final year's teaching......

There aren’t any strikes this term?

I don’t really understand why uni staff think that striking will help them really. The uni’s still get the finance from the student whether they’re there or not. It’s the students and only them who suffer through strikes. The uni takes the student finance but doesn’t have to pay the staff on the days they strike so they’re technically making money when the staff are striking. Poor bloody students are the only people losing out. That’s how it seems to me anyway but I’m sure someone will come and tell me if I’ve got this wrong.

There are at my daughter's university ...

Exactly @mustytrusty- it seems very unfair the students are being penalised when it's nothing to do with them and they have no control over the outcome or duration of the action....😞. Poor DD is really fed up.

https://www.ucu.org.uk/article/13802/2025

https://www.ucu.org.uk/article/14210/Imperial-staff-to-strike-next-week-in-pay-and-conditions-row

there seem to be plenty of ongoing strikes across many universities according to UCU?

Ask how they are going to be taught etc.

What do you want from this? Money or being taught.

I'm sure the uni has a grievance procedure.

Check the contract tems

To be fair, some of the universities do put the strike pay into student hardship funds etc, so they may not actually profit from the strikes. But I do have great sympathy with the students who are paying a very high price for not very much.

I do have sympathy for those facing potential redundancy - I have faced it before myself. At the same time, universities do need to balance the books somehow, and as the market for international students has taken a hit from government immigration policies, the universities are going to need to make cuts.

I think UCU needs to ask itself if any of its strikes or “four fights” have actually had any meaningful impact across the sector?

I'm a lecturer. Not on strike this term but I have been in the past - over pensions and working conditions.

We hate going on strike. We hate that it affects the students; we want to be teaching them. But it's the only lever we have to pull when our employers won't listen or make meaningful attempts to address demands. We are also withdrawing our labour from research but ultimately because the university makes more money from students, it's withdrawing from teaching that hurts our employers more. It's the same for passengers affected by rail strikes, patients affected by doctors strikes, schoolchildren affected by teachers' strikes.

Universities care about league tables and the National Student Survey. Poor performance one year affects recruitment in the next, and so future cash flow: universities want happy students, who are getting the full teaching experience. Threats to student experience can bring management back to the table, especially if students are largely supportive of their lecturers for choosing to take action, if frustrated at missing teaching.

I also think I am showing my students that they can respond and can have a voice, via collective action, when their employer behaves unreasonably. Striking undoubtedly reversed planned cuts to my pension, which is worth tens of thousands in my retirement.

It's actually quite difficult to organise a strike: you have to have a large union turnout in the ballot, then a majority saying yes, you have to select the dates in advance (and balance support among workers vs the pay they lose).

Your daughter won't get any compensation as long as she meets the learning objectives for the courses she's taking. If she doesn't do that, she might have a case. Contact the Office for Students.

Sadly, I agree on most of the "four fights" business, in part because the demands are so nebulous and so it's really hard to measure what success would even look like. But strikes were effective around pensions for those of us in USS - along with lots of work on the terrible revaluation process by UCU colleagues.

I'm not sure how she can achieve the learning objectives for this year's modules when there hasn't been any teaching this year....@BusMumsHoliday

They have a coursework module due in, in a week's time without having had a single lecture or seminar, the lecturer isn't on campus and the VC and the faculty head aren't responding....it's deeply unfair on them. So I imagine she does have a case but it's time consuming and frustrating to complain...and all she really wants is to learn. Financial compensation is one thing but going out into an already horrendous grad. job market without having completed the academic course is worrying her more.

I totally accept that it's frustrating - and it's more frustrating that her head of Faculty hasn't responded. It is unlikely that the lecturers will be on strike all the time (strikes are usually some days and not others) so her module lead/convener is the best person to email. She can start by asking if they'll be changes to the assessment to reflect the missed teaching. She could also email her personal tutor.

I'm also quite surprised she hasn't had any teaching for this module at all? There are some institutions that had 2-3 weeks of strikes in October, but they've been teaching as usual the past 2 weeks, and some that are about to strike but taught through October.

Fair point. Obviously local strikes rather than the national ‘four fights’. I sympathise OP genuinely. Assuming they’re about academic redundancies it’ll be so there are enough staff to teach later cohorts.

It’s a shit show though.

Don’t direct your frustration towards the lecturers, who do not want to lose a day’s pay or negatively affect your children - direct it, vociferously, towards the institution and the government, who refuse to fund HE properly.

As I said upthread @MyDogHumpsThings I do have huge sympathy with those affected, and I'm frustrated with the lack of accountability from the VC who is fobbing my daughter off....

I think she has emailed everyone she can @BusMumsHoliday. And, they have only had four days of lectures in the past 6 weeks....

My point is that you should continue to lobby the VC and the government - and tell the university council (to whom the VC is accountable) about their unprofessional ignorance of your communications. Tell the local media, tell the national media. Tell everyone how fucking useless these VCs are.

In my experience, students in general are having a shit experience compared to what they would have received before Covid.

My daughter has just had an email saying the strikes are going on for the remainder of term....and "sorry for the inconvenience"....😞

You say that part of your concern is that she’s ’paying a not insignificant sum’. Out of interest, did you protest at any point when higher and higher university fees were brought in? Middle class parents had the potential to be a really powerful political lobby, I don’t really understand why they didn’t use it. They allowed the marketisation of higher education, and now yes your daughter is paying the price, but so are lecturers.

If you know something about academia, you’ll know that a significant subsection of the people teaching your daughter are likely on year long or less fixed term contracts (won’t get paid over the summer), or possibly just paid hourly. Quite possibly they’ll be commuting from cities two hours away to teach because jobs are so scarce and lots of the teaching jobs that exist are fixed term so it isn’t really worth moving. They’re on strike for a reason.

If you want to get angry, get angry with the people your daughter’s fees are giving comfortable livings to. It isn’t the lecturers.

I did protest actually, and signed petitions, wrote to my MP etc for all the good that it did.

Tuition fees have been in place since 1998 and there have been issues around academia and funding for a long time; it's never been a path to riches apart from a select few, so whilst I have repeatedly said that I have huge sympathy for the lecturers, they made the choice to enter the sector. It isn't fair that the students are not being given ANY teaching or guidance on how to self teach their final year, but are still expected to pay for their courses - and the VC and the uni are fobbing them off repeatedly.

My original AIBU was whether lecturers should only be allowed to strike for limited periods at a time so that their students don't get caught in the crossfire of an employment dispute.

It’s water under the bridge now, obviously, but polite signing of petitions and writing to MPs, which takes a few minutes, was pointless, middle class parents needed to be banding together in large numbers with a unified message and raising absolute hell. It could have been stopped, you’re just not a demographic that political parties can afford to really piss off. Lecturers have been put in the position of having to protest because you didn’t. Sorry but I’m just not very sympathetic. There’s a difference between academia ‘not being a path to riches’ but being a way to earn a viable living for most entrants, and being a path to precarity and penury for most entrants. Yes people make a choice to enter the sector, but they do so because there are an elusive few proper jobs (or used to be) and they hope if they work hard enough and do enough fixed term contracts and four hour commutes they might be one of the lucky ones. No-one’s entering it with the hope of being exploited for several years and then cast aside. I’m sorry for your daughter, I agree her situation isn’t fair, but if people didn’t enter the sector she wouldn’t have any teaching at all.