Thread by @drkatedevlin

🧵Thought I’d curate all of my weary sighing replies to those who don’t approve of the @UCU strikes here in one handy place. #OneOfUsAllOfUs #UCUstrike ⬇️

“Lazy! Academics hardly do any work anyway”
a) Not only do we regularly pull 40+ hours a week, our work has increased in the pandemic as we “pivoted” (god, that word) to blended teaching.
b) if we hardly do any work, how come you think this strike is disruptive to students? 🧐

“They have all those long holidays”
No, at my institution our holiday allowance is 27 days plus bank holidays and college closures. This isn’t school. We aren’t shut outside term time. And we don’t just teach.

Which brings me to another point: a lecturing job generally has three components on an education & research contract: teaching (40%), research (40%) and admin i.e. pastoral care, leadership roles, etc. (20%). For education only roles, there’s teaching, scholarship & admin.

And don’t forget that UCU membership also includes academic-related roles — e.g. librarians, archivists, IT services — and some professional services roles. Y’know, the people who keep the place going. And they often face HR policies that academics don’t.

“They’re lucky they get a pension at all. Public sector pensions are shit.”
It’s not a race to the bottom. Pensions are deferred earnings. For the amount of study academics go through, the salaries aren’t that great. A lot of us would make more if we left academia.

“Yeah, but you’ve never worked in the real world in a real job.”
Well, I have (archaeologist, then a programmer, plus countless years of waitressing and shop work) but that’s beside the point. Because the point is that it’s not the cushy job you think it is.

“It’s not fair on the students.”
I know. And we really do care about our students, which is why strike action is a last resort. Poor working conditions, casualised labour, and pay gap inequality don’t make for a particularly pleasant learning environment either.

“But students are paying ££££ for this nonsense.”
Breaking that down by contact hours, marking and prep time actually means it’s pretty good value. But that’s moot as it’s not where the money directly goes. (FWIW, I’m against fees.)

“And the students didn’t even get in-person classes! They could’ve learnt everything on YouTube!”
Er, go for it. Alas, creating online materials for a planned and scrutinised curriculum costs time and money. And learning in person isn’t the only single way to learn.

Btw, I think it’s bloody awful that students didn’t get the experience of starting university. I also think it was handled badly by many universities and by the government, especially around tying students to halls contracts.

“Fire them all!”
You can’t. We’re legally striking as part of a union. If you have a problem with *that* then your issues probably aren’t confined to berating academic and academic-related staff who are trying to make their working environment better.

If you’ve read all that and still have the energy to read more, check out the #UCU info on why we’re striking: ucu.org.uk/article/11896/… #OneOfUsAllOfUs #UCUstrike

p.s. I love my job. I genuinely love it. I feel lucky to be able to do it. But we deserve better working conditions. We deserve to be valued for pouring our hearts into it.