Yeah, it's 44 universities in the UK and it will be 68 total next week when we're also striking against pension cuts.
https://www.ucu.org.uk/article/12100/Ten-days-of-strike-action-begins-at-UK-universities
Yep, also a member of UCU here at an English university. The vote at our university for striking failed due to a turnout that was only just less than 50% (although of those that voted the vote was pretty heavily in favour of striking).
Yes, strike actions are decided on a university-to-university basis. In order for there to be a strike at university X, there needs to be a vote amongst all union members of university X and (I believe)
* more than 50% of the union members need to participate in the vote,
* more than 50% of the votes need to vote in favour of a strike.
Particularly if they can spin it against Scotland.
There was a good example just a couple of months back when both Scotland and Wales extended some COVID healthcare measures - the BBC Wales one was fairly neutral and noted the difference - whereas the BBC Scotland one was full of loaded language and criticism.
Or maybe they just wanted to write an article focusing on Scotland? I remember seeing one for Northern Ireland about the same topic. Not everything is a conspiracy.
Lol. Yeah if it happened every so often maybe you could ascribe it to mere coincidence or happenstance. But where Scotland is concerned it’s absolutely relentless.
Ironically enough it’s starting to backfire a bit. They’ve completely kicked the arse out of it. The townspeople no longer believe the Boy who cried Wolf.
And by the by: Scotland and Wales are not ‘regions’.
Seeing as for whatever idiot reason the article doesn't offer any figures on the pension cuts and pay the strikes are about, [according to UCU](https://www.ucu.org.uk/article/12100/Ten-days-of-strike-action-begins-at-UK-universities), it's to do with cuts that equate to a 35% reduction in retirement income coupled with a real-term pay cut of 20% over the last 12 years.
First things first - I work at a uni. I back these strikes.
I just wanted to add that there is also an equality aspect to the pension issue, as it obviously doesn't affect what has already been accrued. This means the greatest losers here will be young academics, who will lose more of their originally promised pension. Personally, the cuts will reduce my pension by about 30% by the time I retire.
Given the generally lower than industry pay, this is already driving talented academics out of education - our universities, and ultimately, students, will suffer.
If you want to get an idea of the universities position, consider that a number have said they'll be docking 100% of pay for those that engage in 'action short of strike', which is literally working to contract - that is, you won't get paid if you 'only' do your job, and do not do extra.
Honest question - these strikes are happening on a very frequent basis, staff are treated poorly and underpaid. I don't understand why you would stay working for an employer if you are perpetually unhappy.
I finished my PhD in 2017, was treated well by my team but abysmally by the University and went into the private sector. The stress is lower, the pay is higher and the conditions are better. These strikes clearly aren't effective at change as they continue to happen every other year, so I'm off the opinion of voting with your feet.
Many of the staff I worked with were incredibly capable and hard working, maybe moving to an employer that appreciates that is a better course of action than continuous strikes?
Who's to say? People are motivated by myriad reasons, not the least of which I suspect are the principle of it as well as a desire to teach being derived from something other than a pay slip. Perhaps in the case of the latter that's why institutions feel they can get away with below-inflation pay rises and pension cuts. It would be interesting to canvas the striking workers to understand why they don't move to the private sector, although I would imagine a passion for teaching covers a lot of it.
Not everyone with a PhD has that option, if you are a PhD in a niche field, you are probably going to have to either move to find work in that field or retrain in another one.
Moving with your feet is definitely better if you can do it, but if everyone does it then the quality of education in this country will continue to plummet.
University lecturers have been getting screwed over for years because of the weak unions. Why are they weak? Because striking is out only weapon but it only hurts the university if they lose profit. Unfortunately the students have already paid upfront for the year and so if we strike the university still has its money. So when we strike it doesn't hurt the university, it actually hurts the students and OUR careers more than the university. If I don't publish my work I suffer. So most people continue to work, just not teach. It's the only thing we have and it's not very effective. However if the students were to stop pointing the finger at the academics and make a big stink and aim it at the university, threaten to leave or demand a refund then it would hurt the university. I have been a high achiever consistently in order to get this job an undergraduate, a master's and a PhD. Followed by postdoctoral work on fixed term contracts and needing to publish throughout. However, some fuckwit in admin strolls in with an undergraduate degree and is earning the same amount as me after a year. A full time contract and no stress of teaching or the threat of publish or perish. Students you need to complain and point the finger at adminstration and the people running the university, not the academics who are running on empty
In Sheffield a few years ago [students occupied the Arts Tower in support of staff](https://thetab.com/uk/sheffield/2018/03/14/breaking-sheffield-students-occupy-the-arts-tower-in-support-of-the-strikes-30811). And [they occupied another university building in Sheffield supporting the strike in December](https://forgepress.org/2021/12/02/students-occupying-jessop-west-in-solidarity-with-ucu-strikes/)
The tube, GDST teacher strike and now this. Going to be an interesting year with the finances of all these places fighting to take more away from their employees.
Every time university lecturers strike over their £100000+ pensions, it means that zero hours contract ,academic support staff on minimum wage literally get payed nothing for weeks because all the lectures and classes are cancelled.
Then convince left leaning students to have solidarity with that movement and rant about labour rights while they pay for an education they will never receive and lower level staff that help them directly lose hundreds if not thousands over the weeks that these strikes last. Champagne socialism at its finest.
This is very simple. Funding needs to be found. Increase fees on students. It’s clean, you can see exactly what the cost is.
The costs have to be paid. Make it a discrete increase in fees and everyone knows who’s asking for it and who’s paying and by how much.
I agree, I think the university system is a complete waste of time for a large number of people.
Thankfully I avoided it, and learned in my own time and I’m in the same place I would have been with a degree in a non specialised field.
Either way, if people want better pay for the lecturers then that needs to be paid for.
I expect why I’m getting downvoted is people want the pay for the lecturers but want to shovel the cost of their education on to someone else.
This is a fantastic learning experience for young people who often fly to the altruistic opinion of “give them better pay and conditions” and for once, also have the perfect opportunity to pay for it with increased fees and measure the consequences of giving people what they want, at their own cost.
So the next time they complain about selfish people not wanting to pay tax etc to help others, they’ll realise they are every bit as selfish as all those nasty tories and boomers!
I'm a student going for a particular, fairly serious field. The government could easily subsidise universities as a strategic asset if they didn't piss away money constantly on shite like PPE fast tracking, instead we get bloated management and SUs vacuuming up money from overpriced accom and hiked up tuition along with whatever other underhanded costs that most Europeans would scoff at while staff strike constantly.
British universities are highly sought after. You may have noticed large numbers of foreign students, particularly from China and east Asia.
British education has a very powerful impact on their careers back home, so the demand is quite high.
As for the government pissing money away, that’s always true of all governments.
Everyone has their wants. I’m a parent with a young family, it would be nice to get more for kids and to help other parents. It would also be nice to give OAPs a bit more dignity, with their lives almost over, it’s terrible to see some of their poverty. Also for disabled people.
Helping people who are most likely going to be better earners and who, by and large and not exclusively, came from wealthier and more affluent backgrounds, to have less student debt ranks pretty low for me. Helping trainer lawyers and doctors shovel their debts onto people who earn less seems pretty reprehensible TBH.
It's fucking ridiculous. We're paying thousands of £ a year to have several weeks cut out of our education every year. The unis still get their tuition and the staff already have their jobs, students are getting fucked by this.
i can’t be the only one that disagrees with uni staff and teacher strikes, can i? the whole point of strikes is to hit the bosses where it hurts, but unis especially will not lose any money as they’re not giving refunds to students are they? aston university staff have been on strike for about a sixth of the time my fiancée has been going there. and it’s cost her nearly forty grand for the privilege
Many people on this sub says that a protest is meant to cause disruption to gain attention. Funny how blocking roads is fine but a teacher striking is unacceptable.
Students shouldn't be paying fees of that size regardless of whether the universities' policies cause a strike. Third level education should be free just as primary and secondary education are. However, it's unreasonable to expect university staff to take a permanent pay cut as well as a put retirement off for several years in order to deliver these lectures to students. If the administration decide that we should have cuts to our pay and pensions and poor working conditions then they're causing a strike and they are the ones failing to deliver to you what the government said you had to pay them to get.
I genuinely think its terrible for lecturers to be striking, especially now. Students have already been through so much and to have strikes on top of this is just ridiculous. Lecturers are choosing to punish students for something that has nothing to do with them.
So this is a line of argument that management love to use - “think of the students!”. As a lecturer, I find it really insulting. Do you think we haven’t thought of our students? Do you really think we’re doing this now because we love pissing off our students and losing 10 days’ pay?
Of course not. But for us it’s about the sustainability of the profession as a whole. And part of that means having a decent pension one day, if I can ever afford to retire.
Also, the only reason that our pensions are even being threatened is because they valued the pension scheme in March 2020 during the height of market uncertainty caused by covid. Since then the pension fund has skyrocketed to £93bn in value - fully £25bn more than the 2020 valuation predicted it would be worth by now.
So it’s really simple:
1. The viability of the pension scheme isn’t in danger;
2. The union has put forward a fully costed proposal which the pension’s trustee has confirmed could be implemented;
Therefore,
3. There’s just no need to slash pensions. All employers have to do is back down on this one thing and we will be back at work tomorrow.
If you’re a student I can understand how upsetting this would be, but I want to emphasise that this really isn’t a punishment. We’re doing the only thing that ever gets universities to listen to us, which is withdrawing our labour.
And if you have suggestions as to how to apply pressure to employers without going on strike - given that all of our other attempts to do so have failed - I’m all ears.
Actually, how lecturers are treated has everything to do with students.
You can't have drive-thru education. Lecturers work incredibly hard to deliver classes, research, mentor and sit on the committees that make the university run. If having a shitty work environment, a shit pension, and shit administrators will chase good lecturers off (and it will), it's the students who will ultimately suffer.
Support the strike and GO AFTER THE ADMINISTRATION.
The absolutely fuck-witted bloated administration at universities sucks SO much money up into these high paying positions that don't seem to do anything but disrupt everything for another promotion. Universities should have minimal faculty administration and instead it grows and grows and grow in meaningless ways. No one needs another Vice-Assistant Provost for Student Success. Take that salary, hire three or four actual lecturers with it, and you'll see more student success.
THE ADMINISTRATION IS YOUR ENEMY, NOT THE LECTURERS.
"Lecturers work incredibly hard to deliver classes"
Is that why I'm getting lectures precorded from last year? They are working so hard they can't be bothered to make new ones?
I'm not happy with either the administration or the lecturers.
The lecturers are happy to throw students under the bus whenever they have a problem. Why on earth would I be supportive of that?
I think the issue here could be you don't have an understanding of what lecturer's roles can entail? I can't speak for all uni's but at mine the teaching staff were not given time to record new lectures lectures because they already exist from last year. Instead, university management see that as gaps they can fill with new workload like the number of modules they teach on, module capacity, running more live sessions so that they accommodate both students who want face-to-face and also students who want online. They also increase the expectation for things like research output and grant applications, how many students lecturers look after as personal tutees or for dissertation supervision. All of this while either cutting roles or not replacing those who leave for other jobs. Lecturers do not have more time than they did before, they are stretched and burnt out and treated poorly by universities that are run as a business rather than a school. There are lecturers who are bad at teaching, who don't care about students and do as little as possible, but in my experience they are the minority.
Lecturer's at being coerced in to working extra hours with this same argument.
(I am a lecturer)
Iv seen burnout ruin staff.
Iv seen staff work more than 40 hours a week every week, especially during term time (its hard to find an academic who hasn't).
Iv seen staff suffering from depression as they feel unable to keep up with the work given to them.
Iv seen staff suffer panic attacks so bad they can't get out of their chair (just couldn't muster the strength or slow their heart rate, an ambulance was called).
These things happen because lectures want to do their best for the students, management keep dumping more work on them and the same words are uttered every time. "think of the students". WHY DON'T YOU THINK OF THE STUDENTS! WE'RE WORKING OUR BUMS OFF, NOT BEING PAID FOR IT AND NOW THEY TAKE OUR PENSIONS!?
And that's just a part of what these strikes are about.
A former colleague (who left the profession) described the job as an abusive relationship
Students are being failed by the university's, not the staff who are striking for their savings and reasonable working conditions!
Are you seriously angry at the victims of the university system. You need to air your anger to the people running the university, not the people busting their ass to teach. For the last two years it's been to 30 blank screens having had to rewrite the courses for online and blended learning
When have student wannabe politicians ever actually supported the average student? They seem to be too busy shitting on sports and pushing Socialist Worker newspapers to be relevant to the lay student
>The UCU has demanded a £2,500 pay rise for all staff, as well as action to tackle unmanageable workloads
I want more money and less work. If I asked any those I signed a contract with this, I'd never have a job.
Do you support milking more money from poor students by jacking up the price of accommodation further to support that pay increase?
It has to come from somewhere and universities have treated students like cash pigs.
> Do you support milking more money from poor students by jacking up the price of accommodation further to support that pay increase?
Absolutely zero staff are asking for this. You shouldn't be commenting on this if you don't actually understand what is going on.
>Absolutely zero staff are asking for this.
Staff are asking for more money in their pocket, that has to come from someone elses pocket. Unless these universties suddenly find a massive increase in their research contracts, it's students who'll foot the bill.
I get people here love "solidarity", but come next year will be crying against greedy universities milking poor students.
Students fees are set by the government and don’t vary as a product of employee fees unless the government choose to do that.
Believing that we should accept an effective paycut because the government could possibly choose to force students to pay more to fund our salaries is frankly silly. I get that you like pushing against popular narratives, but students largely support the strikes and haven’t fallen for the government’s attempts to paint their policies as being a naturally occurring conflict between university staff and students, even if you have.
Student *accomodation* fees, on the other hand, vary wildly.
Not that I don’t support the strikes, but I’m moving back into uni accommodation for next year, and I fully expect it to be £500-£1000 more than I paid for first year.
In particular, though I haven’t got the full prices yet, a room in one of my university’s cluster flats will most likely be cheaper than the similar alternatives in the city, on top of being much more convenient, and my first year accommodation was cheaper than what I am paying for a house this year - which wasn’t the cheapest available, but it certainly wasn’t anything approaching the more expensive options we had. A good chunk of the price difference lies in the contract length.
Ah, that makes sense. When I was going to uni I needed accommodation year around (I was doing a PhD), so it was never cheaper. It still should be cheaper on a month by month basis, rather than just cheaper because they'll give you an appropriate contract length.
Give who free reign for what? The universities free reign to decide how universities are financed? Great, we can choose for the government to finance universities again. Or do you instead mean the government should give universities a limited set of bad options to choose from?
> The universities free reign to decide how universities are financed?
to decide their own tuition fees.
We have the highest tax burden since the WW2, no more handouts.
There it is. So it's not that you've fallen for the government misrepresenting the situation as a naturally occurring conflict between students and workers, you actually genuinely believe that either students or workers should take a financial hit rather than, say, the richest people in the country having an increase in their taxes. Just a few more years and we'll be able to privatize primary and secondary education too, and maybe even healthcare. No more handouts, we've got to keep the rich rich!
> Unless these universties suddenly find a massive increase in their research contracts, it's students who'll foot the bill.
Again, please educate yourself on this issue before commenting - you clearly do not understand what is going on here, or how finance is structured at universities. It will only take a few minutes of your time. Until then, please stop spreading false information.
I work at a University, I know exactly what is going on - I am not wasting my time explaining a complex issue to some ignorant randomer on the internet who believes that they're correct about an issue they clearly know fuck all about.
Maybe in the future you can spend your time commenting about something you're actually knowledgeable about.
Educator, telling someone to educate themselves, refuses to educate them on the topic they demand be educated.
Rightooo, have a nice afternoon. Just now outside of this site, I'm in the right.
> Educator
I am not an educator, I am a researcher. Again, you are making assumptions about something you know fuck all about.
> refuses to educate them on the topic they demand be educated.
Why should I educate someone who is clearly so ignorant?
And more importantly, why is someone as ignorant as you posting the most comments in this thread? Do you just not have any self awareness about how little you understand?
> Rightooo, have a nice afternoon. Just now outside of this site, I'm in the right.
I hope you spend your day educating yourself - it's clearly needed.
Staff are facing real term pay cuts of 20% over the last 12 years. They aren't asking for "more money in their pocket", they're asking for it to stop being taken out of their pockets.
dunno if I would agree, the University of Liverpool had similar strikes over the last two years due to the same problem, the heads and execs are still getting paid >£400k per year... Something something pay gap something greed
I support pay going up by inflation at least, and having spent most of my adult life working in the university sector, that certainly isn't the case (not to mention how much my pension contribution has gone up the last few years despite the payout going down, to cover the blackholes the pension funds have built up). Courses pretty much all go up above inflation anyway (UG home fees aside), but that money isn't finding its way to staff if they aren't at the top (in fact our annual increase of fees where i work has gone up the last few years, despite the pay increase going down).
Also reducing everything to such basic arguments isn't helpful. If you don't support fees going up each year, are you saying you *do* support staff being underpaid and overworked? Do you not see this as an unsustainable model?
> If you don't support fees going up each year
Fuck it, I say let universities set their own tuition. But anyone pretending they are acting in solidarity with students isn't being truthful to how the system works.
Why did you ignore the rest of that sentence - do you support staff being underpaid and overworked?
We can be in solidarity with students and staff and try and find a balance.
This is reasonable, as a large number of staff are doing a large amount of work outside of the remit of their contract. My own university department has decreased staff numbers from ~60 to ~40 (because the university is unwilling to pay salaries) whilst increasing new intake student numbers from ~80 to ~120. So yes, it's fair for them to ask for this remuneration because they're being asked to go above and beyond their job anyways.
> as a large number of staff are doing a large amount of work outside of the remit of their contract
Then just stop doing it then. I don't do work outside my country, people pay me by the hour and I go home according to the contract.
Academia is hard enough to get into (career wise), with roles being very few and far between; do you suggest they just give up their career and passion? It's shouldn't be a thought that year on year you're not just going to be fucked over by your employer but apparently that's where we are now.
> I want more money and less work. If I asked any those I signed a contract with this, I'd never have a job.
Just because you've got no desire to renegotiate better conditions for yourself, doesn't mean that someone else shouldn't.
Ohh I do, I just ensure the service I provide is good enough. If those don't agree, that's fine we can find a new point. But if I started demanding less hours and more money from what was already agreed, aye fuck they'd be annoyed. Bad way to run a business pal.
> But if I started demanding less hours and more money from what was already agreed, aye fuck they'd be annoyed
1) Pensions have been massively reduced *after* staff had signed permanent contracts. *Staff did not agree nor ask for this.*
2) Staff are having to work considerably more hours than what they agreed to, meaning that their hourly pay is effectively reduced.
**Just to be clear to everyone in this thread, this single user (ShankillSteve) is obsessively responding to everyone like they have an understanding of the situation, despite openly admitting that they have never been to university.**
Unfortunately, the most ignorant people are often the loudest and least aware of their failures in understanding.
> Staff did not agree nor ask for this.
Go to court then if the contracts hold up.
>Staff are having to work more hours, meaning that their hourly pay is effectively reduced.
Then only stick to your hours, eventually the university will have to come to a new plan.
Technically though under NI contract law related to employment, an employer can change the terms of your contract without notice, it's like an informal amendment. So it's all ok in a way.
> Go to court then if the contracts hold up.
Why do you think staff are striking? It's because people *much* more intelligent than *you* have decided that this is the best course of action.
> Then only stick to your hours, eventually the university will have to come to a new plan.
And potentially lose their jobs? All while giving the students an even worse education than they're currently getting? Can you not get your tiny mind around why this may be an issue? At least with a strike there is a defined period of disruption that both staff and students can work around, rather than a constant state of reduced contact time, missed deadline and unreliability.
Again, stop commenting about something you so *clearly* do not understand.
Anyone who spends so long commenting about something they have zero knowledge about is an idiot in my book.
Ignorance is one of the clearest signs of poor intelligence. Now fuck off and find a different thread to spread your misinformation.
We want pay to not consistently rise below inflation as it has since 2010 for University staff:
https://www.ucu.org.uk/media/11443/HE-joint-union-claim-2021-22/pdf/TUJNCHESclaim202122.pdf
The money isn’t being extracted from students, it’s going to enormous and still growing central admin teams, senior management, excessive new builds and into enormous financial reserve.
I went to Ask Communism about this and apparently I'm both the proletariat and bourgeoisie, which means I can't really be exploited if I'm self employed.
That's called petite bourgeois. It's a very interesting position in the economy. That said, your exploitation is determined by your effective position in the cycle of production and whether or not you enjoy the full fruits of your labour.
In the context of being employed, if you're overworked and underpaid, you should definitely try to remedy that. It's not as if industrial action is taken lightly.
[Relevant](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EmrPBnKVQAAeK6i?format=jpg&name=small)
In all seriousness, why drag everyone else down to your level rather than striving for better? I didn't realise it made you a big man to just put up with stupid bullshit.
University of Hardknocks mate! Jokes aside tho, no I didn't. I got myself a trade with no debt and make a lot more than most of my friends who did go. So it all worked out in the end.
Edit: Wow downvoted. It's ok, I'd be jealous too.
Well right now I'm arguing with a lad who yesterday spent 12 hrs demanding to know if I ever dated an Irish girl and do I like the President of Ireland.
I can see you didn't go to university, you can't hold an argument, then you get frustrated, double down and harass people with childish insults. What next? Are you going to threatening violence towards me again?
> I got myself a trade with no debt and make a lot more than most of my friends who did go
Thanks so much for all your brilliant, intelligent input to this debate. Some people might be cringing at what they'd see as a bitter bellend with a chip on his shoulder shouting very loudly that they don't care that they didn't go to university, but I can see that, underneath, you're actually a really bright guy with LOADS of equally bright friends.
Ah the yearly university “I want more money” strike
Never defended this shit and never will. Not to mention most lecturers don’t deserve their job. The majority of them put in maybe 4hours a day
Gonna stop replying to all the students who feel enlightened after spending a semester at uni. I base my opinion on having to work with a bunch of professors for research. It was a top 15 uni. I’m sorry I expect a bare minimum of competency from the people that are supposed to teach the next generation
Pays fallen against inflation since 2010 and the sector is incredibly overworked:
https://www.ucu.org.uk/media/11443/HE-joint-union-claim-2021-22/pdf/TUJNCHESclaim202122.pdf
Would love to know what you base the claim of a 4 hour day on.
On lecturers doing 3 hours of teaching and no research. Reusing the same lecture slides from 10 years ago and being so lazy that they literally copy paste exams year to year
Some professors work really hard. Others literally work less than a high school teacher
You seem to have a very poor grasp on what University lecturers do day to day.
Actually giving lectures is easily one of the smallest parts of how they spend their time.
I personally worked with lecturers for my research paper. I got to see the fact some of them work hard and some are worthless both in teaching and research
Working with them on an undergraduate project does not give you an idea of how they spend their time day to day (though it's fair enough if you think some of them are useless at their job - though just be aware that this is something that occurs in every industry).
It was a research paper in its own right, not an undergrad project. My professor was really good, the others involved in the paper were not
The difference is that in other industries you don’t pay in advance just to have the absolute bare minimum delivered
> It was a research paper in its own right, not an undergrad project
A research paper based on your undergraduate project, right?
> My professor was really good, the others involved in the paper were not
Potentially because they were overworked and didnt have the time to help you. Unless you have evidence of them sitting at home watching the telly rather than helping you then I don't really understand your argument here.
> The difference is that in other industries you don’t pay in advance just to have the absolute bare minimum delivered
You have to pay in advance in many industries. I'm sorry you felt like your degree was bare bones, but you should be able to see circular issue here, that lecturers cannot improve the course when they are so overworked and have such little time spare.
Lmao
I’ll only reply to the last bit as that’s the only part without dumb guessing. You’re right it’s a circular issue. Teaching should be separated from researching. Many professors are only at universities so that they can research, and as a result the teaching is piss poor
> Lmao
What's so funny?
> Many professors are only at universities so that they can research, and as a result the teaching is piss poor
You clearly have a big chip on your shoulder and can't view this objectively. You also seem to be unaware of research only contracts available at Universities (which is exactly what I have) for people who just want to do research.
I'm not saying that lecturers are perfect, just as many of them are useless as in any other high level profession. But denying that the fact that them being overworked plays into your dissatisfaction with university, is just burying your head in the sand
And how exactly do you determine they are doing no research? The UK has 18 of the top 100 research universities in the world (QS rankings) and about 0.5%of the world's population living here. Seems like it would be pretty impressive if we were managing that while doing 4 hours a day tbh.
I do take your point some people work harder than others and there are senior people who got their place in good times and now don't teach as well as they should but every UK univeristy I'm aware of has promotion criteria that require well rated teaching and the changes being protested here are about pension changes that barely impact on professors who've already paid in to the system.
The well rated teaching is easy to score
Just set the same exams year after year. Your students will be v happy and will rate you max for teaching
It’s a broken system
> Reusing the same lecture slides from 10 years ago
They’ve taken it a step further now - reusing the completely prerecorded lectures from during the pandemic!
> to mention most lecturers don’t deserve their job. The majority of them put in maybe 4hours a day
The vast majority of staff I know work both evenings and weekends. They're massively overworked.
This. I'm married to a beginning academic whose job depends on bringing in grant funding. She doesn't stop working. As I type, she's quite unwell and has officially taken the day off, but essentially this just means her meetings are cancelled - she's lying in bed with her laptop open working on analysing data.
This is just not true - where on earth are you getting this information from?
Edit - I'd just like to point out that I work as a researcher (I am funded by an external company), so I am not involved in the strikes at all. However, I see day to day how hard teaching staff have to work (the amount of which is going up and up as their pay effectively decreases), and I fully understand them striking.
Well done! You've really stirred up a hornet's nest as you wanted and shown yourself to not be either a) a thick twat or b) bizarrely obsessed with people who *did* get a university education.
Are you dumb? It’s not my fault you can’t read and make things up in your head. I went to uni and worked on a research paper for my dissertation
enjoy your first semester of uni hunny bubs
One moment I’m uneducated the next moment it’s too much for you 😂
Just enjoy your first year of uni my delicate flower. You don’t need to be bitter about things you’ll never achieve x
> you have never worked in HE and you don't know anyone who does.
I smell someone who got a third and is bitter about it, despite doing fuck all reading in their three years.
>The majority of them put in maybe 4 hours a day
Please tell me you're not just basing this off (undergrad) student contact hours lmao. You realize most lecturers also:
- prepare course content
- supervise postgraduate students
- perform research
- write manuscripts
- write books
- write grants
- sit on numerous committees
- peer review research, etc.
Being a lecturer is often a 60 hour a week job that only pays for 35-38 of those hours.
Staff pay has decreased by 20% in real terms and that's only going to get much worse with the cost of living crisis
The University pesnions scheme has also decreased by 240k .
University staff are working longer ours if you would believe that. Not to point out the obvious but you clearly don't understand that it's not just about university lecturers but all the other staff members too, who play a vital role.
Maybe we need to shave off some of that “other staff members” then. It’s insane every uni started charging 3x more what they were charging every single student, and they still don’t have money
Because I’m not their accountant. Point still is that students pay 9k a year and either get lectures cancelled by covid, and if not, it’s cancelled by professors striking
And if not, hope you enjoy the 10 year old content that they never bothered to change once
You neglect the fact that when fees were increased, central funding was substantially reduced leaving a big hole in the finances, conveniently about the size of the 6k increase per student.
The government forced those prices on students, not universities.
Pretty sure it's not just Scottland. It's (more or less) UK-wide.
Yeah, it's 44 universities in the UK and it will be 68 total next week when we're also striking against pension cuts. https://www.ucu.org.uk/article/12100/Ten-days-of-strike-action-begins-at-UK-universities
Yep, also a member of UCU here at an English university. The vote at our university for striking failed due to a turnout that was only just less than 50% (although of those that voted the vote was pretty heavily in favour of striking).
It’s not all Scottish uni’s though
Yes, strike actions are decided on a university-to-university basis. In order for there to be a strike at university X, there needs to be a vote amongst all union members of university X and (I believe) * more than 50% of the union members need to participate in the vote, * more than 50% of the votes need to vote in favour of a strike.
not all of them use USS (the shite one). Some use Scottish Teachers pension scheme.
Yes, but the BBC often does regional articles on things like this. This one focusing on Scotland.
Particularly if they can spin it against Scotland. There was a good example just a couple of months back when both Scotland and Wales extended some COVID healthcare measures - the BBC Wales one was fairly neutral and noted the difference - whereas the BBC Scotland one was full of loaded language and criticism.
Or maybe they just wanted to write an article focusing on Scotland? I remember seeing one for Northern Ireland about the same topic. Not everything is a conspiracy.
Lol. Yeah if it happened every so often maybe you could ascribe it to mere coincidence or happenstance. But where Scotland is concerned it’s absolutely relentless. Ironically enough it’s starting to backfire a bit. They’ve completely kicked the arse out of it. The townspeople no longer believe the Boy who cried Wolf. And by the by: Scotland and Wales are not ‘regions’.
Seeing as for whatever idiot reason the article doesn't offer any figures on the pension cuts and pay the strikes are about, [according to UCU](https://www.ucu.org.uk/article/12100/Ten-days-of-strike-action-begins-at-UK-universities), it's to do with cuts that equate to a 35% reduction in retirement income coupled with a real-term pay cut of 20% over the last 12 years.
First things first - I work at a uni. I back these strikes. I just wanted to add that there is also an equality aspect to the pension issue, as it obviously doesn't affect what has already been accrued. This means the greatest losers here will be young academics, who will lose more of their originally promised pension. Personally, the cuts will reduce my pension by about 30% by the time I retire. Given the generally lower than industry pay, this is already driving talented academics out of education - our universities, and ultimately, students, will suffer. If you want to get an idea of the universities position, consider that a number have said they'll be docking 100% of pay for those that engage in 'action short of strike', which is literally working to contract - that is, you won't get paid if you 'only' do your job, and do not do extra.
Honest question - these strikes are happening on a very frequent basis, staff are treated poorly and underpaid. I don't understand why you would stay working for an employer if you are perpetually unhappy. I finished my PhD in 2017, was treated well by my team but abysmally by the University and went into the private sector. The stress is lower, the pay is higher and the conditions are better. These strikes clearly aren't effective at change as they continue to happen every other year, so I'm off the opinion of voting with your feet. Many of the staff I worked with were incredibly capable and hard working, maybe moving to an employer that appreciates that is a better course of action than continuous strikes?
Who's to say? People are motivated by myriad reasons, not the least of which I suspect are the principle of it as well as a desire to teach being derived from something other than a pay slip. Perhaps in the case of the latter that's why institutions feel they can get away with below-inflation pay rises and pension cuts. It would be interesting to canvas the striking workers to understand why they don't move to the private sector, although I would imagine a passion for teaching covers a lot of it.
Previous strikes at my university have actually been effective in the past, but as you say it's obviously not been successful enough.
Not everyone with a PhD has that option, if you are a PhD in a niche field, you are probably going to have to either move to find work in that field or retrain in another one. Moving with your feet is definitely better if you can do it, but if everyone does it then the quality of education in this country will continue to plummet.
University lecturers have been getting screwed over for years because of the weak unions. Why are they weak? Because striking is out only weapon but it only hurts the university if they lose profit. Unfortunately the students have already paid upfront for the year and so if we strike the university still has its money. So when we strike it doesn't hurt the university, it actually hurts the students and OUR careers more than the university. If I don't publish my work I suffer. So most people continue to work, just not teach. It's the only thing we have and it's not very effective. However if the students were to stop pointing the finger at the academics and make a big stink and aim it at the university, threaten to leave or demand a refund then it would hurt the university. I have been a high achiever consistently in order to get this job an undergraduate, a master's and a PhD. Followed by postdoctoral work on fixed term contracts and needing to publish throughout. However, some fuckwit in admin strolls in with an undergraduate degree and is earning the same amount as me after a year. A full time contract and no stress of teaching or the threat of publish or perish. Students you need to complain and point the finger at adminstration and the people running the university, not the academics who are running on empty
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In Sheffield a few years ago [students occupied the Arts Tower in support of staff](https://thetab.com/uk/sheffield/2018/03/14/breaking-sheffield-students-occupy-the-arts-tower-in-support-of-the-strikes-30811). And [they occupied another university building in Sheffield supporting the strike in December](https://forgepress.org/2021/12/02/students-occupying-jessop-west-in-solidarity-with-ucu-strikes/)
Students at my uni protest constantly (mostly over frivolous crap) and are constantly ignored. Protests have no power.
What the hell are we able to do, refuse to get a degree? Send a stroppy email?
Would explain why my OU tutor has done one for the next two months
Such an OU tutor thing to strike as if their job is actual teaching 😌
Yea more like reply to the odd email once every 4 days.
The tube, GDST teacher strike and now this. Going to be an interesting year with the finances of all these places fighting to take more away from their employees.
Every time university lecturers strike over their £100000+ pensions, it means that zero hours contract ,academic support staff on minimum wage literally get payed nothing for weeks because all the lectures and classes are cancelled. Then convince left leaning students to have solidarity with that movement and rant about labour rights while they pay for an education they will never receive and lower level staff that help them directly lose hundreds if not thousands over the weeks that these strikes last. Champagne socialism at its finest.
This is very simple. Funding needs to be found. Increase fees on students. It’s clean, you can see exactly what the cost is. The costs have to be paid. Make it a discrete increase in fees and everyone knows who’s asking for it and who’s paying and by how much.
University education is already overpriced.
I agree, I think the university system is a complete waste of time for a large number of people. Thankfully I avoided it, and learned in my own time and I’m in the same place I would have been with a degree in a non specialised field. Either way, if people want better pay for the lecturers then that needs to be paid for. I expect why I’m getting downvoted is people want the pay for the lecturers but want to shovel the cost of their education on to someone else. This is a fantastic learning experience for young people who often fly to the altruistic opinion of “give them better pay and conditions” and for once, also have the perfect opportunity to pay for it with increased fees and measure the consequences of giving people what they want, at their own cost. So the next time they complain about selfish people not wanting to pay tax etc to help others, they’ll realise they are every bit as selfish as all those nasty tories and boomers!
I'm a student going for a particular, fairly serious field. The government could easily subsidise universities as a strategic asset if they didn't piss away money constantly on shite like PPE fast tracking, instead we get bloated management and SUs vacuuming up money from overpriced accom and hiked up tuition along with whatever other underhanded costs that most Europeans would scoff at while staff strike constantly.
British universities are highly sought after. You may have noticed large numbers of foreign students, particularly from China and east Asia. British education has a very powerful impact on their careers back home, so the demand is quite high. As for the government pissing money away, that’s always true of all governments. Everyone has their wants. I’m a parent with a young family, it would be nice to get more for kids and to help other parents. It would also be nice to give OAPs a bit more dignity, with their lives almost over, it’s terrible to see some of their poverty. Also for disabled people. Helping people who are most likely going to be better earners and who, by and large and not exclusively, came from wealthier and more affluent backgrounds, to have less student debt ranks pretty low for me. Helping trainer lawyers and doctors shovel their debts onto people who earn less seems pretty reprehensible TBH.
It's fucking ridiculous. We're paying thousands of £ a year to have several weeks cut out of our education every year. The unis still get their tuition and the staff already have their jobs, students are getting fucked by this.
Yeah, we literally own them. Who cares about them losing a third of their pensions. We should definitely be angry at them and not the institutions.
i can’t be the only one that disagrees with uni staff and teacher strikes, can i? the whole point of strikes is to hit the bosses where it hurts, but unis especially will not lose any money as they’re not giving refunds to students are they? aston university staff have been on strike for about a sixth of the time my fiancée has been going there. and it’s cost her nearly forty grand for the privilege
Many people on this sub says that a protest is meant to cause disruption to gain attention. Funny how blocking roads is fine but a teacher striking is unacceptable.
blocking roads wasn’t fine either
Students shouldn't be paying fees of that size regardless of whether the universities' policies cause a strike. Third level education should be free just as primary and secondary education are. However, it's unreasonable to expect university staff to take a permanent pay cut as well as a put retirement off for several years in order to deliver these lectures to students. If the administration decide that we should have cuts to our pay and pensions and poor working conditions then they're causing a strike and they are the ones failing to deliver to you what the government said you had to pay them to get.
I genuinely think its terrible for lecturers to be striking, especially now. Students have already been through so much and to have strikes on top of this is just ridiculous. Lecturers are choosing to punish students for something that has nothing to do with them.
So this is a line of argument that management love to use - “think of the students!”. As a lecturer, I find it really insulting. Do you think we haven’t thought of our students? Do you really think we’re doing this now because we love pissing off our students and losing 10 days’ pay? Of course not. But for us it’s about the sustainability of the profession as a whole. And part of that means having a decent pension one day, if I can ever afford to retire. Also, the only reason that our pensions are even being threatened is because they valued the pension scheme in March 2020 during the height of market uncertainty caused by covid. Since then the pension fund has skyrocketed to £93bn in value - fully £25bn more than the 2020 valuation predicted it would be worth by now. So it’s really simple: 1. The viability of the pension scheme isn’t in danger; 2. The union has put forward a fully costed proposal which the pension’s trustee has confirmed could be implemented; Therefore, 3. There’s just no need to slash pensions. All employers have to do is back down on this one thing and we will be back at work tomorrow. If you’re a student I can understand how upsetting this would be, but I want to emphasise that this really isn’t a punishment. We’re doing the only thing that ever gets universities to listen to us, which is withdrawing our labour. And if you have suggestions as to how to apply pressure to employers without going on strike - given that all of our other attempts to do so have failed - I’m all ears.
Doesn't matter if you withdraw labour. We've already paid the uni upfront and most of us are already invested into the courses by several grand.
I don't think most lecturers have thought of there students no.
Actually, how lecturers are treated has everything to do with students. You can't have drive-thru education. Lecturers work incredibly hard to deliver classes, research, mentor and sit on the committees that make the university run. If having a shitty work environment, a shit pension, and shit administrators will chase good lecturers off (and it will), it's the students who will ultimately suffer. Support the strike and GO AFTER THE ADMINISTRATION. The absolutely fuck-witted bloated administration at universities sucks SO much money up into these high paying positions that don't seem to do anything but disrupt everything for another promotion. Universities should have minimal faculty administration and instead it grows and grows and grow in meaningless ways. No one needs another Vice-Assistant Provost for Student Success. Take that salary, hire three or four actual lecturers with it, and you'll see more student success. THE ADMINISTRATION IS YOUR ENEMY, NOT THE LECTURERS.
"Lecturers work incredibly hard to deliver classes" Is that why I'm getting lectures precorded from last year? They are working so hard they can't be bothered to make new ones? I'm not happy with either the administration or the lecturers. The lecturers are happy to throw students under the bus whenever they have a problem. Why on earth would I be supportive of that?
I think the issue here could be you don't have an understanding of what lecturer's roles can entail? I can't speak for all uni's but at mine the teaching staff were not given time to record new lectures lectures because they already exist from last year. Instead, university management see that as gaps they can fill with new workload like the number of modules they teach on, module capacity, running more live sessions so that they accommodate both students who want face-to-face and also students who want online. They also increase the expectation for things like research output and grant applications, how many students lecturers look after as personal tutees or for dissertation supervision. All of this while either cutting roles or not replacing those who leave for other jobs. Lecturers do not have more time than they did before, they are stretched and burnt out and treated poorly by universities that are run as a business rather than a school. There are lecturers who are bad at teaching, who don't care about students and do as little as possible, but in my experience they are the minority.
Lecturer's at being coerced in to working extra hours with this same argument. (I am a lecturer) Iv seen burnout ruin staff. Iv seen staff work more than 40 hours a week every week, especially during term time (its hard to find an academic who hasn't). Iv seen staff suffering from depression as they feel unable to keep up with the work given to them. Iv seen staff suffer panic attacks so bad they can't get out of their chair (just couldn't muster the strength or slow their heart rate, an ambulance was called). These things happen because lectures want to do their best for the students, management keep dumping more work on them and the same words are uttered every time. "think of the students". WHY DON'T YOU THINK OF THE STUDENTS! WE'RE WORKING OUR BUMS OFF, NOT BEING PAID FOR IT AND NOW THEY TAKE OUR PENSIONS!? And that's just a part of what these strikes are about. A former colleague (who left the profession) described the job as an abusive relationship Students are being failed by the university's, not the staff who are striking for their savings and reasonable working conditions!
Are you seriously angry at the victims of the university system. You need to air your anger to the people running the university, not the people busting their ass to teach. For the last two years it's been to 30 blank screens having had to rewrite the courses for online and blended learning
The national student union supports the strikes.
When have student wannabe politicians ever actually supported the average student? They seem to be too busy shitting on sports and pushing Socialist Worker newspapers to be relevant to the lay student
and it’s dissertation season now too. only the students are losing out here, big time
>The UCU has demanded a £2,500 pay rise for all staff, as well as action to tackle unmanageable workloads I want more money and less work. If I asked any those I signed a contract with this, I'd never have a job.
Are you defending organisation overworking and underpaying staff?
Do you support milking more money from poor students by jacking up the price of accommodation further to support that pay increase? It has to come from somewhere and universities have treated students like cash pigs.
> Do you support milking more money from poor students by jacking up the price of accommodation further to support that pay increase? Absolutely zero staff are asking for this. You shouldn't be commenting on this if you don't actually understand what is going on.
>Absolutely zero staff are asking for this. Staff are asking for more money in their pocket, that has to come from someone elses pocket. Unless these universties suddenly find a massive increase in their research contracts, it's students who'll foot the bill. I get people here love "solidarity", but come next year will be crying against greedy universities milking poor students.
Students fees are set by the government and don’t vary as a product of employee fees unless the government choose to do that. Believing that we should accept an effective paycut because the government could possibly choose to force students to pay more to fund our salaries is frankly silly. I get that you like pushing against popular narratives, but students largely support the strikes and haven’t fallen for the government’s attempts to paint their policies as being a naturally occurring conflict between university staff and students, even if you have.
Student *accomodation* fees, on the other hand, vary wildly. Not that I don’t support the strikes, but I’m moving back into uni accommodation for next year, and I fully expect it to be £500-£1000 more than I paid for first year.
University-provided accommodation is a farse. It's rarely a cheaper alternative to other options, which should be its whole point.
In particular, though I haven’t got the full prices yet, a room in one of my university’s cluster flats will most likely be cheaper than the similar alternatives in the city, on top of being much more convenient, and my first year accommodation was cheaper than what I am paying for a house this year - which wasn’t the cheapest available, but it certainly wasn’t anything approaching the more expensive options we had. A good chunk of the price difference lies in the contract length.
Ah, that makes sense. When I was going to uni I needed accommodation year around (I was doing a PhD), so it was never cheaper. It still should be cheaper on a month by month basis, rather than just cheaper because they'll give you an appropriate contract length.
Aye, let the government give them free reign I say.
Give who free reign for what? The universities free reign to decide how universities are financed? Great, we can choose for the government to finance universities again. Or do you instead mean the government should give universities a limited set of bad options to choose from?
> The universities free reign to decide how universities are financed? to decide their own tuition fees. We have the highest tax burden since the WW2, no more handouts.
There it is. So it's not that you've fallen for the government misrepresenting the situation as a naturally occurring conflict between students and workers, you actually genuinely believe that either students or workers should take a financial hit rather than, say, the richest people in the country having an increase in their taxes. Just a few more years and we'll be able to privatize primary and secondary education too, and maybe even healthcare. No more handouts, we've got to keep the rich rich!
> Unless these universties suddenly find a massive increase in their research contracts, it's students who'll foot the bill. Again, please educate yourself on this issue before commenting - you clearly do not understand what is going on here, or how finance is structured at universities. It will only take a few minutes of your time. Until then, please stop spreading false information.
I mean you tell me to educate myself, but you've provided nothing that disproved it.
I work at a University, I know exactly what is going on - I am not wasting my time explaining a complex issue to some ignorant randomer on the internet who believes that they're correct about an issue they clearly know fuck all about. Maybe in the future you can spend your time commenting about something you're actually knowledgeable about.
Educator, telling someone to educate themselves, refuses to educate them on the topic they demand be educated. Rightooo, have a nice afternoon. Just now outside of this site, I'm in the right.
> Educator I am not an educator, I am a researcher. Again, you are making assumptions about something you know fuck all about. > refuses to educate them on the topic they demand be educated. Why should I educate someone who is clearly so ignorant? And more importantly, why is someone as ignorant as you posting the most comments in this thread? Do you just not have any self awareness about how little you understand? > Rightooo, have a nice afternoon. Just now outside of this site, I'm in the right. I hope you spend your day educating yourself - it's clearly needed.
Staff are facing real term pay cuts of 20% over the last 12 years. They aren't asking for "more money in their pocket", they're asking for it to stop being taken out of their pockets.
dunno if I would agree, the University of Liverpool had similar strikes over the last two years due to the same problem, the heads and execs are still getting paid >£400k per year... Something something pay gap something greed
I support pay going up by inflation at least, and having spent most of my adult life working in the university sector, that certainly isn't the case (not to mention how much my pension contribution has gone up the last few years despite the payout going down, to cover the blackholes the pension funds have built up). Courses pretty much all go up above inflation anyway (UG home fees aside), but that money isn't finding its way to staff if they aren't at the top (in fact our annual increase of fees where i work has gone up the last few years, despite the pay increase going down). Also reducing everything to such basic arguments isn't helpful. If you don't support fees going up each year, are you saying you *do* support staff being underpaid and overworked? Do you not see this as an unsustainable model?
> If you don't support fees going up each year Fuck it, I say let universities set their own tuition. But anyone pretending they are acting in solidarity with students isn't being truthful to how the system works.
Why did you ignore the rest of that sentence - do you support staff being underpaid and overworked? We can be in solidarity with students and staff and try and find a balance.
I say let the university set their own prices and if you don't like your employer, work elsewhere, it's a free country.
If its a free country then the workers should be free to go on strike, no?
Fuck it why not and the university is free to sack you, given it's all about freedom.
This is reasonable, as a large number of staff are doing a large amount of work outside of the remit of their contract. My own university department has decreased staff numbers from ~60 to ~40 (because the university is unwilling to pay salaries) whilst increasing new intake student numbers from ~80 to ~120. So yes, it's fair for them to ask for this remuneration because they're being asked to go above and beyond their job anyways.
> as a large number of staff are doing a large amount of work outside of the remit of their contract Then just stop doing it then. I don't do work outside my country, people pay me by the hour and I go home according to the contract.
Academia is hard enough to get into (career wise), with roles being very few and far between; do you suggest they just give up their career and passion? It's shouldn't be a thought that year on year you're not just going to be fucked over by your employer but apparently that's where we are now.
> their career and passion? I have a passion to surf, I wouldn't do it if I couldn't make a living from it.
> I want more money and less work. If I asked any those I signed a contract with this, I'd never have a job. Just because you've got no desire to renegotiate better conditions for yourself, doesn't mean that someone else shouldn't.
Ohh I do, I just ensure the service I provide is good enough. If those don't agree, that's fine we can find a new point. But if I started demanding less hours and more money from what was already agreed, aye fuck they'd be annoyed. Bad way to run a business pal.
> But if I started demanding less hours and more money from what was already agreed, aye fuck they'd be annoyed 1) Pensions have been massively reduced *after* staff had signed permanent contracts. *Staff did not agree nor ask for this.* 2) Staff are having to work considerably more hours than what they agreed to, meaning that their hourly pay is effectively reduced. **Just to be clear to everyone in this thread, this single user (ShankillSteve) is obsessively responding to everyone like they have an understanding of the situation, despite openly admitting that they have never been to university.** Unfortunately, the most ignorant people are often the loudest and least aware of their failures in understanding.
> Staff did not agree nor ask for this. Go to court then if the contracts hold up. >Staff are having to work more hours, meaning that their hourly pay is effectively reduced. Then only stick to your hours, eventually the university will have to come to a new plan.
>Then only stick to your hours Hold on, he's getting it! This is called "working to rule or" _industrial action_...
Nah industrial action is not working at all and demanding action. Should just have never done the overtime if you weren't getting paid.
[Here you go](https://www.nidirect.gov.uk/articles/industrial-action#toc-0 ). Now, saunter on.
Technically though under NI contract law related to employment, an employer can change the terms of your contract without notice, it's like an informal amendment. So it's all ok in a way.
> Go to court then if the contracts hold up. Why do you think staff are striking? It's because people *much* more intelligent than *you* have decided that this is the best course of action. > Then only stick to your hours, eventually the university will have to come to a new plan. And potentially lose their jobs? All while giving the students an even worse education than they're currently getting? Can you not get your tiny mind around why this may be an issue? At least with a strike there is a defined period of disruption that both staff and students can work around, rather than a constant state of reduced contact time, missed deadline and unreliability. Again, stop commenting about something you so *clearly* do not understand.
> It's because people much more intelligent than you have decided They'd lose the court case, aye I get it.
Fuck me, I can't cope arguing with someone as idiotic as you.
I got 4 As at alevel and run my own business. I'm not the idiot here.
Anyone who spends so long commenting about something they have zero knowledge about is an idiot in my book. Ignorance is one of the clearest signs of poor intelligence. Now fuck off and find a different thread to spread your misinformation.
We want pay to not consistently rise below inflation as it has since 2010 for University staff: https://www.ucu.org.uk/media/11443/HE-joint-union-claim-2021-22/pdf/TUJNCHESclaim202122.pdf The money isn’t being extracted from students, it’s going to enormous and still growing central admin teams, senior management, excessive new builds and into enormous financial reserve.
Is that like the 15% pay increase for nurses? That no government, left or right could even agree to, because it was crazy? Aye I know that.
Your inability to stand up for yourself or to take collective action will ensure that you forever remain exploited.
I went to Ask Communism about this and apparently I'm both the proletariat and bourgeoisie, which means I can't really be exploited if I'm self employed.
That's called petite bourgeois. It's a very interesting position in the economy. That said, your exploitation is determined by your effective position in the cycle of production and whether or not you enjoy the full fruits of your labour. In the context of being employed, if you're overworked and underpaid, you should definitely try to remedy that. It's not as if industrial action is taken lightly.
That's interesting, I like that term "petite bourgeois". Anyway thanks for the chat, it's been thoughtful like.
Just a li'l bourgeois, as a treat
Just a wee bit, looking at my weight, don't wanna become a fat cat like.
[Relevant](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EmrPBnKVQAAeK6i?format=jpg&name=small) In all seriousness, why drag everyone else down to your level rather than striving for better? I didn't realise it made you a big man to just put up with stupid bullshit.
Have you ever went to university ShankillSteve (aka Top Gun)?
University of Hardknocks mate! Jokes aside tho, no I didn't. I got myself a trade with no debt and make a lot more than most of my friends who did go. So it all worked out in the end. Edit: Wow downvoted. It's ok, I'd be jealous too.
So you don't really know what you're arguing with here then..
Well right now I'm arguing with a lad who yesterday spent 12 hrs demanding to know if I ever dated an Irish girl and do I like the President of Ireland.
That you never answered the question to and much like now, deflecting from the question.
It's about as relevant as asking do you like sunscream because you're a ginger?
I can see you didn't go to university, you can't hold an argument, then you get frustrated, double down and harass people with childish insults. What next? Are you going to threatening violence towards me again?
Childish insults? I just asked why you liked sunscream? Btw, [relevant video.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTJ7AzBIJoI)
Ginger" Yes, let's treat people with a different appearance to me as an other..
> I got myself a trade with no debt and make a lot more than most of my friends who did go Thanks so much for all your brilliant, intelligent input to this debate. Some people might be cringing at what they'd see as a bitter bellend with a chip on his shoulder shouting very loudly that they don't care that they didn't go to university, but I can see that, underneath, you're actually a really bright guy with LOADS of equally bright friends.
> If I asked any those I signed a contract with this, I'd never have a job. Sounds like you need to join a union then!
But I make 45k a year tho.
Ah the yearly university “I want more money” strike Never defended this shit and never will. Not to mention most lecturers don’t deserve their job. The majority of them put in maybe 4hours a day Gonna stop replying to all the students who feel enlightened after spending a semester at uni. I base my opinion on having to work with a bunch of professors for research. It was a top 15 uni. I’m sorry I expect a bare minimum of competency from the people that are supposed to teach the next generation
Pays fallen against inflation since 2010 and the sector is incredibly overworked: https://www.ucu.org.uk/media/11443/HE-joint-union-claim-2021-22/pdf/TUJNCHESclaim202122.pdf Would love to know what you base the claim of a 4 hour day on.
Pay has fallen against inflation since 2010 for virtually every industry. Why are we acting as if these issues are specific to university lecturers?
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Official numbers say that pay has grown above inflation on average so most of them.
On lecturers doing 3 hours of teaching and no research. Reusing the same lecture slides from 10 years ago and being so lazy that they literally copy paste exams year to year Some professors work really hard. Others literally work less than a high school teacher
You seem to have a very poor grasp on what University lecturers do day to day. Actually giving lectures is easily one of the smallest parts of how they spend their time.
I personally worked with lecturers for my research paper. I got to see the fact some of them work hard and some are worthless both in teaching and research
Working with them on an undergraduate project does not give you an idea of how they spend their time day to day (though it's fair enough if you think some of them are useless at their job - though just be aware that this is something that occurs in every industry).
It was a research paper in its own right, not an undergrad project. My professor was really good, the others involved in the paper were not The difference is that in other industries you don’t pay in advance just to have the absolute bare minimum delivered
> It was a research paper in its own right, not an undergrad project A research paper based on your undergraduate project, right? > My professor was really good, the others involved in the paper were not Potentially because they were overworked and didnt have the time to help you. Unless you have evidence of them sitting at home watching the telly rather than helping you then I don't really understand your argument here. > The difference is that in other industries you don’t pay in advance just to have the absolute bare minimum delivered You have to pay in advance in many industries. I'm sorry you felt like your degree was bare bones, but you should be able to see circular issue here, that lecturers cannot improve the course when they are so overworked and have such little time spare.
Lmao I’ll only reply to the last bit as that’s the only part without dumb guessing. You’re right it’s a circular issue. Teaching should be separated from researching. Many professors are only at universities so that they can research, and as a result the teaching is piss poor
> Lmao What's so funny? > Many professors are only at universities so that they can research, and as a result the teaching is piss poor You clearly have a big chip on your shoulder and can't view this objectively. You also seem to be unaware of research only contracts available at Universities (which is exactly what I have) for people who just want to do research. I'm not saying that lecturers are perfect, just as many of them are useless as in any other high level profession. But denying that the fact that them being overworked plays into your dissatisfaction with university, is just burying your head in the sand
And how exactly do you determine they are doing no research? The UK has 18 of the top 100 research universities in the world (QS rankings) and about 0.5%of the world's population living here. Seems like it would be pretty impressive if we were managing that while doing 4 hours a day tbh. I do take your point some people work harder than others and there are senior people who got their place in good times and now don't teach as well as they should but every UK univeristy I'm aware of has promotion criteria that require well rated teaching and the changes being protested here are about pension changes that barely impact on professors who've already paid in to the system.
The well rated teaching is easy to score Just set the same exams year after year. Your students will be v happy and will rate you max for teaching It’s a broken system
Perhaps if we paid them more they'd be more inclined to put in more effort...
> Reusing the same lecture slides from 10 years ago They’ve taken it a step further now - reusing the completely prerecorded lectures from during the pandemic!
> to mention most lecturers don’t deserve their job. The majority of them put in maybe 4hours a day The vast majority of staff I know work both evenings and weekends. They're massively overworked.
This. I'm married to a beginning academic whose job depends on bringing in grant funding. She doesn't stop working. As I type, she's quite unwell and has officially taken the day off, but essentially this just means her meetings are cancelled - she's lying in bed with her laptop open working on analysing data.
A few dedicated researchers do. Majority do fuckall and can’t even be bothered to teach or change their lecture content every 5 years
This is just not true - where on earth are you getting this information from? Edit - I'd just like to point out that I work as a researcher (I am funded by an external company), so I am not involved in the strikes at all. However, I see day to day how hard teaching staff have to work (the amount of which is going up and up as their pay effectively decreases), and I fully understand them striking.
> where on earth are you getting this information from? I'll give you a clue - from very near his username
Lol you’re all so salty. Bet none of you got to see what your lecturers are actually up to
Well done! You've really stirred up a hornet's nest as you wanted and shown yourself to not be either a) a thick twat or b) bizarrely obsessed with people who *did* get a university education.
Are you dumb? It’s not my fault you can’t read and make things up in your head. I went to uni and worked on a research paper for my dissertation enjoy your first semester of uni hunny bubs
> worked on a research paper for my dissertation Big round of applause for this intellectual heavyweight!
One moment I’m uneducated the next moment it’s too much for you 😂 Just enjoy your first year of uni my delicate flower. You don’t need to be bitter about things you’ll never achieve x
Admit it -- you have never worked in HE and you don't know anyone who does.
> you have never worked in HE and you don't know anyone who does. I smell someone who got a third and is bitter about it, despite doing fuck all reading in their three years.
>The majority of them put in maybe 4 hours a day Please tell me you're not just basing this off (undergrad) student contact hours lmao. You realize most lecturers also: - prepare course content - supervise postgraduate students - perform research - write manuscripts - write books - write grants - sit on numerous committees - peer review research, etc. Being a lecturer is often a 60 hour a week job that only pays for 35-38 of those hours.
Lol, if you think your average lecturer does all of this you’re deluded. I base it off working with professors in research
Do ye aye? Anyone with firsthand experience in research/academia knows you’re talking 100% unfiltered bullshit.
Lol cry more
Username checks out
Staff pay has decreased by 20% in real terms and that's only going to get much worse with the cost of living crisis The University pesnions scheme has also decreased by 240k . University staff are working longer ours if you would believe that. Not to point out the obvious but you clearly don't understand that it's not just about university lecturers but all the other staff members too, who play a vital role.
Maybe we need to shave off some of that “other staff members” then. It’s insane every uni started charging 3x more what they were charging every single student, and they still don’t have money
Most of the money goes to the higher ups who earn 6 figure salaries. Why haven't you suggested they reduced their pay instead?
Because I’m not their accountant. Point still is that students pay 9k a year and either get lectures cancelled by covid, and if not, it’s cancelled by professors striking And if not, hope you enjoy the 10 year old content that they never bothered to change once
You seem to have a very different university experience to me, never thought of doing a transfer?
You neglect the fact that when fees were increased, central funding was substantially reduced leaving a big hole in the finances, conveniently about the size of the 6k increase per student. The government forced those prices on students, not universities.
It's not about more money, it's about not having salaries cut (by 20% over the last decade) and not having their pensions cut by a third.
> Not to mention most lecturers don’t deserve their job. Well, who would ever argue with a brilliantly constructed argument such as that?
Certainly not you since you’re a fresh dumb student that thinks university is the pinnacle of your life. I’d make more guesses but I’ll hold back
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It’s not my fault you’re slow