Scrutable

Next week members of the University and College Union will be striking again.

That includes me so I thought I'd start a thread so that half the board can post in support and the other half can tell us we're a bunch of feckless, work shy c.nts.

I'll get in early with the support.

Last time I was around a UK university during a UCU strike they had really good messaging, too, in order to communicate to students what they were striking about and why. Try to convince as many of them as possible to direct their ire up the food chain to the bean-counters holding the purse-strings, etcetera.

It was a nice contrast from the strikes around here, which unfortunately tend to be antagonistic b.llsh.t mixed with chaos.

More support from me. Good luck!

You're a bunch of feckless, work shy c.nts.

I support that.

Speaking as a feckless workshy c.nt, I fully support you

GeenDienst wrote: ↑

Thu Nov 21, 2019 5:39 pm

You're a bunch of feckless, work shy c.nts.

I support that.

Beat me to it, You rotten swine, With appologies to Eccles.

Blackcountryboy wrote: ↑

Fri Nov 22, 2019 8:32 am

GeenDienst wrote: ↑

Thu Nov 21, 2019 5:39 pm

You're a bunch of feckless, work shy c.nts.

I support that.

Beat me to it, You rotten swine, With appologies to Eccles.

*LW dashes in*

"Speaking as a ..."

Oh nothing, nevermind, I'll just go back to skiving then.

I support Turdly in all they do.

I did strike last time, we had a clear (well eventually it was clear) goal and defined end point. It was reached and the strikes stopped.

It is much less clear this time. There's no threat to DB. All the numbers that UCU are arguing over will be re-evaluated in 2 years time. I've found https://twitter.com/MikeOtsuka persuasive, although as ever with twitter and the UCU I don't know any of the factional fighting details.

ast time I was around a UK university during a UCU strike they had really good messaging

Ours didn't. In general the UCU's communications seem very poor. I had to join twitter just to find out what was happening.

I'll probably not strike this time, but may ASOS, although as I don't teach I'm not sure anyone will notice.

science_fox wrote: ↑

Fri Nov 22, 2019 9:46 am

I did strike last time, we had a clear (well eventually it was clear) goal and defined end point. It was reached and the strikes stopped.

It is much less clear this time. There's no threat to DB. All the numbers that UCU are arguing over will be re-evaluated in 2 years time. I've found https://twitter.com/MikeOtsuka persuasive, although as ever with twitter and the UCU I don't know any of the factional fighting details.

ast time I was around a UK university during a UCU strike they had really good messaging

Ours didn't. In general the UCU's communications seem very poor. I had to join twitter just to find out what was happening.

I'll probably not strike this time, but may ASOS, although as I don't teach I'm not sure anyone will notice.

It's certainly less clear than last time. There's an interesting post about the HEC decision on what action should be taken here

Personally, I was undecided but we have recently had swathing cuts to support staff announced which will only make precarious working, deskilling etc worse so I've decided I will strike as some that would like to are less able to afford to.

Last time, I was a rank and file academic, didn’t like going on strike, felt it was worth it.

This time, I’m livid. UCU has been taken over by a bunch of folk who enjoyed so much the protest element of last time, that they have embraced protest for protest’s sake. On a vote with low turnout that’s frankly as marginal as the brexit vote in some HEIs, they’ve dragged us out, with no prior warning on an 8 day strike, that will lose staff nearly 1/3rd of a month’s pay, without asking us if that was sensible. And we are withdrawing our labour from institutions that don’t have any power to change the behaviour/effect of the things we are striking on.

And old fashioned lefties like me say that because we’ve been called out, principles of collectivism demand that we don’t cross pickets. So I feel obligated to take action because I think I can’t be seen to undermine that, even though I firmly believe it’s totally pointless.

And this time I’m in a dept management type job so I’m stuck on both sides of the fence anyway.
I’m really cross. Very conflicted. And also really, really cross.

Somehow I've got no teaching next week. On the other hand, I've got visitors from an Australian research institute visiting to interview to select students to go on placement there next year and I'm the new placements tutor.

I'm also very much in agreement with DrTf.

My place isn't on strike because we didn't get the requisite 50% turnout in the ballot, but apparently we might reballot in the new year. The rules on ballots, if I have interpreted them correctly, seem to have the perverse effect that by voting against strike action you can ensure that it happens. If 40% of members in an institution vote in favour of action and no one votes against then there is no strike. If opponents of strike action pull their finger out so that 15% of members vote against, and the same 40% vote in favour, then you do strike.

snoozeofreason wrote: ↑

Fri Nov 29, 2019 1:03 pm

My place isn't on strike because we didn't get the requisite 50% turnout in the ballot, but apparently we might reballot in the new year. The rules on ballots, if I have interpreted them correctly, seem to have the perverse effect that by voting against strike action you can ensure that it happens. If 40% of members in an institution vote in favour of action and no one votes against then there is no strike. If opponents of strike action pull their finger out so that 15% of members vote against, and the same 40% vote in favour, then you do strike.

That is why I abstained, in an attempt to reduce the likelihood of quorum.
I hate this strike, it’s making me feel a bit ill. It’s right to raise awareness of the issues, but a national strike isn’t the way, except for the pay claim, which no one is talking about (mainly because it’s preposterous)

Precarious jobs are a big issue, especially zero hours, but that a local decision made by each institution, dept even. So pressure there is already diluted. My dept for example doesn’t recruit to zero hrs contracts, others do. Surely these are local agendas.

Gender pay gap and equality by contrast is a national conversation, and one that needs to start at pre-school. I think it’s fascinating and frustrating in equal measure that HE is expected to solve inequality in education from adulthood, when the students and staff have all been through an education system a that has long since entrenched difficult difference in academic capital.

So it all seems a bit hand-wavy to me, really.

My institution opened a dialogue with the union on getting rid of zero-hours contacts after the last strike, which the union emailed to update everyone about just a few weeks ago: so the strikes feel somewhat unnecessary on that front.

I also have a bit of a nerd-grudge about with the UCU over the process by which the current General Secretary was elected. The reverse of the ballot paper had an explanation of the ranked voting system being used, and the explanation was pretty obviously wrong, because it referred to redistribution of "surplus" votes, which can't happen if only one candidate is to be elected. I would be the first to admit that this is a bit of an academic point, but we are a union of academics, so we ought to get academic points right (and it's no excuse either to try and blame Electoral Reform Services - they ran the election, but it was still our election).

I did write to the Union about it, and was disgruntled to get no response at all, not even a "Thank you for your email which ̶h̶a̶s̶ ̶b̶e̶e̶n̶ ̶t̶h̶r̶o̶w̶n̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶b̶i̶n̶ is receiving our attention".