Thread by @cat_oakley

Revisiting my #precaritystory almost 2 yrs on for #UCUstrike. In 2017-2018, I was a research postdoc on a short-term contract at a Russell Group uni. The whole year was a frenzy of overwork, fear & desperation to shore up my CV & & secure my next job in the sector. [Thread]

Drawing on some old tweets from the time here in my account of this, so the story may sound familiar if you were following me back then.

Part of my job that year was to lead on an exhibition with an external partner. Due to circumstances beyond my control (staff illness/turnover, strike action), the schedule was delayed. I asked the uni to extend my contract by 14 days so I could complete the project & be paid.

But the external AHRC grant funding the project had run out, so the uni would have had to cover my pay for those 14 days. My manager and the HoD said they had no money for it. With help from union rep, I escalated the request to Faculty level, outlining my case in detail.

I explained the reasons for the delay. I outlined what being able to complete the exhibition as paid work in the final two weeks would mean to me, as the person who had led the project, written all the content, which drew primarily on my own PhD & postdoc research.

As a junior researcher who had produced the creative content, and without whom the exhibition could not have happened. As the person who had cultivated strong relationships with museum partners and other stakeholders. As a young female ECR looking for ownership of my work.

The Faculty verdict was: I was hired on a short-term contract & it had ended. To pay me from Faculty funds for a further 14 days to complete the work before exhibition opening would “set a precedent” for other fixed-term staff. I was told to hand everything over to my PI.

Inevitably, I did unpaid work, as handover was not an effective mitigation for the loss of my labour. My contract finished and I was unemployed. The constant stress and distress which had built over months relating to my precarious position overwhelmed me.

Whilst guests at the exhibition launch were sipping on prosecco & lauding the value of museum-university partnerships, I was gulping down oral rehydration sachets. My body has given up after chronic stress.

Behind all the institutional rhetoric about the value of public engagement and partnership-building was a reality in which my labour in making the whole thing happen was being erased & exploited.

My last day at the uni came and went. No-one said goodbye, including my PI. No-one really knew me. I was alienated from the dept the whole 15 months & mainly worked from home from choice.

I won't go into detail on the gaslighting that ensued as I fought to ensure I could claim credit for my work. I was in a sub-department of a department & I was told that if I wanted a senior colleague to reply to my emails I'd have to copy my (male) manager in.

This was the sum total of my precarious employment in academia beyond my work as a TA during my PhD. But it was enough. A toxic tangle of job insecurity, exploitation of junior staff by senior male staff, overwork, mental illness.

Looking back on it now from a more stable place, I'm reminded of the fear & vulnerability that make it so hard for precarious staff to push back and speak up. And I'm struck by the interrelationship of these issues, which form complimentary claims in the current @ucu strike.

I'm no longer working in the sector so I'm not a member of UCU. But I know from my own experience in 2018 how difficult it can be to go on strike as a precarious worker. Sending solidarity to everyone fighting for universities that are places of equality, not exploitation.