So as the #UCUstrike comes to an end, I thought I should say that I was totally in support. My branch wasn't out on strike, but with a (tiny) public platform here, I thought it important for Professors to say. /THREAD 
For that majority of you who don't know, the dispute focuses on (1) pay, (2) casualisation, (3) workload, and (4) pensions. Controversy rages around this, but on (2) and (3) in particular English and Welsh HE is in a state of deepening crisis.
I am fairly paid for what I do. I work hard, but sometimes I choose to. But for junior and mid-ranking colleagues, the system is on the brink of collapse. Some lecturers are working 50, 60 hour weeks and more.
The situation for the 'precariat' - junior lecturers who are often hired year by year, or even term by term or class by class - is absolutely dire. Exploitation, insecurity, in many cases actual poverty. The system is running on empty, and sucking more and more into this trap.
The pensions issue is complex, but the employers' side has handled it abysmally - confrontation, messed-up stats, the lot. Not enough time to get into it here.
Overall, although you'll see lots of theoretical talk about the 'neoliberal university' and 'marketisation', that for me is only one element in the crisis. Its overriding fact is simple: there is nowhere near enough money in the system.
It's creaking and threaten to break up everywhere, and teaching and research quality is at last beginning to suffer markedly. Like the late Soviet economy, more and more human capital is being poured into a basically broken model.
Neither main political party has a clue about this of course - they can barely think their way into a paper bag, let alone into one. But if more money doesn't arrive soon, chunks of English HE, one of the country's great success stories, are going to start greying out.
And don't give me that stuff about VC salaries and shiny buildings. Most of that makes absolutely no difference at all. Colleagues are withdrawing their labour as last resort, to highlight what's going on.
So do have a think about all this before making a judgement about the strikes - they are totally justified in so many ways, and it's important for Profs and others with some media voice to back them. /END
