In solidarity with East Midlands Universities on strike for eight days we re-publish, with permission, this great twitter feed from Dr Lee Jones (QMUL) on why staff are striking:
“You’ll get nothing from me for the next 8 days except #UCUstrike. I’ll explain why I and thousands of other university staff are striking here. Long thread, because there are a lot of grievances. /1
Universities are at breaking point after years of marketisation.
Many ppl think unis are great places to work. Not really.
We’re overworked to the point of collapse. Academics work 2 unpaid days per week to cope with insane workloads. ucu.org.uk/media/8195/Wor… #UCUstrike /2
Uni staff referrals to occupational health and counselling are up 77% and 67% from 2009-15. hepi.ac.uk/wp-content/upl…
43% of uni staff exhibit at least mild mental disorder,
and stress is worse than for cops/ medics
. #UCUstrike /3
At my uni
– 41% of staff say they have no reasonable workload control
– 43% can’t strike decent work/life balance
– 64% say no effective policies to relieve workload pressures
– 44% witnessed bullying/ harassment just last year.
connected.qmul.ac.uk/media/connecte…
#UCUstrike /4
Why is it so bad? Uni leaders now run campuses like businesses. They cram students in to get more income; drive down staff costs to divert money to buildings; and impose ever more work to game external metrics/ league tables, to get even more money and growth.
#UCUstrike /5
At my uni, over last decade, student numbers rose 66% but academic staff rose only 33%.
At many unis, despite paying absurdly high fees, students face cramped seminar rooms & libraries & overworked, stressed staff with insufficient time to support them.
#UCUstrike /6
A sign of the intensification of academic labour: at my uni, income per staff member increased 40% from 2008-18.
Meanwhile, our real-terms pay fell 21%.
This is hyper-exploitation, pure and simple.
#UCUstrike /8
According to my rough calculations, the take-home hourly pay of a newly-minted university lecturer is just £10.44, taking into account how many hours they actually work per week.”
#UCUstrike /9
Yet as staff pay fell 21% in real terms over last decade, our Principal’s pay and perks package rose 32%, to £324,726 in 2017/18, when £2.2m also went on “key management personnel”. finance.qmul.ac.uk/media/finance/…
Inequalities seen in private sector now manifest in unis.
#UCUstrike /10
And pay inequalities hit women and BAME colleagues hardest. At my uni, the gender pay gap is 14% and the BAME gap is 22%. hr.qmul.ac.uk/media/hr/forms…
This is typical of higher education.
UCU wants action to address this, too.
#UCUstrike /11
Meanwhile, more and more academics are employed on short-term, hourly paid or even “zero hours” contracts. Some of this is legit, but a lot of it’s simply to expand unis on the cheap.
#UCUstrike /12
Many young academics, w/ student debt & years of foregone earnings, now compete ferociously for short-term jobs where they’re often ruthlessly exploited & can’t do research work needed to get permanent jobs. It’s grotesquely exploitative.
#UCUstrike /13
On top of all this, our pensions have been cut 3 times in last 8yrs, costing the average lecturer £240k in retirement. Some will have only £150/wk to live on. ucu.org.uk/media/10433/FA…
The old bargain was: crap pay but dignified retirement. Now that’s going, too.
#UCUstrike /14
So what’s the strike about? Everything. Pay, pensions, workloads, equality, casualisation.
It’s about the dire realities of a failed experiment in marketising a public good.
We are trying to save universities, as well as ourselves.
#UCUstrike /15
