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AUT strike, contd. (A Rant.)
Jun. 1st, 2006 11:03 amThe Beeb reports today that the government has "intervened" in the strike - to demand what is effectively a four week hiatus in the strike. (Thanks to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
nmg for interpretation, and ang_grrr for the link.) They're asking the unions to put the latest - minutely improved - offer to the membership. But if the unions ballot the membership, apparently it will take four weeks, during which time the current action of banning assessment will be lifted. In other words there will be four weeks in which - guess what? - we could just about do our marking, and the poor ickle students could all go home with their standard-issue 2:1s.
Fucking bastards. if I didn't understand this the first time I read it, and I'm IN the union, how is the public meant to understand it? Not to mention the media - whose unanimous response is the same as the government's two faced lament : "I am extremely concerned at the impact of this dispute on students, and I strongly urge the unions to put this to their members".
Yeh right. What about being "extremely concerned" about the effect a real drop in income of c 40% has had on the morale of higher education? What about the fact that any half decent academic with a transferable skill (ie, not Scots law :-) and not actually chained here by family or other ties, would if he had any sense, move to the US and earn twice as much and get some respect, not to mention decent administrative back up? What about the fact that while other public sector workers for the public good - doctors, nurses, teachers, firemen, police - are always treated as underpaid heroes of the revolution, while academics are treated like misbehaving children if thay ask for a wage even vaguely consistent with their hours, years of training, skill levels and stress levels?
AS I've said before, for me, this strike isn't about money. I have huge amounts of empathy for the people for whom it is : I was one of them very recently. But I'm in the happy moral high ground of knowing that this strike is likely to make very little difference to me monetarily. I'm in it because I want my profession to be VALUED. In the US, you can count that value in dollars. In Germany and Italy and France, salaries vary, but you can count it in prestige, in public recognition of your status. In the UK, the general view is that academics are social drones who do the job as a hobby while living on their inherited old money, or (if female) their husband. Hell why pay them at all? They'd do it for free, poor dorks, just for the chance to teach classes of 300 while trying to publish for the RAE, write grant applications which usually get rejected, dealing with endless whinging consumerist students who think they've bought a guaranteed 2:1 with their student loan*, and doing endless fucking QA garbage. Yeh, really glamorous, non time consuming, hobby. Show me a modern academic under 40, who doesn't work unpaid overtime every day at least half the year, who *actually* takes more than a standard holiday allowance even though in theory we can ("Have you finished for the summer then?" is my quintessential blood boiling question), who hasn't at some point suffered from depression, alcoholism, CFS, migraines, or some kind of persistent bad health as a result of the sheer stress of the job nowadays. And I'll show you a pink panda.
And I'm sorry guys, but to me this is much more significant than fucking breastfeeding icons.
* Ironic laugh of yesterday: the latest two students who are threatening to sue because they aren't going to get their degree on time are two women, one a fashion student, one doing English and media studies. Yeh, because they were SO about to walk instantly into a job :-)
**EDIT 2: And five minutes ago guidance for our students comes round which informs them that "It is hoped that the Boards would meet within a fortnight of the cessation of the dispute, but we have no way of knowing when the dispute will end. " Do you begin to see why I was sneakily , er , looking over papers on the train? In a typical year (not this year thank christ) , I'd have had half of 200- 250 family ordinary papers to mark, the same number of property ordinary papers: plus Honours, and Masters marking. that's a good month of someone working as fast as they can before their brain dribbles out their ears. (oh and 5-10 dissertations for both Hons and Masters to mark. And all the second marking. Fun fun fun..)
nmg for interpretation, and ang_grrr for the link.) They're asking the unions to put the latest - minutely improved - offer to the membership. But if the unions ballot the membership, apparently it will take four weeks, during which time the current action of banning assessment will be lifted. In other words there will be four weeks in which - guess what? - we could just about do our marking, and the poor ickle students could all go home with their standard-issue 2:1s.Fucking bastards. if I didn't understand this the first time I read it, and I'm IN the union, how is the public meant to understand it? Not to mention the media - whose unanimous response is the same as the government's two faced lament : "I am extremely concerned at the impact of this dispute on students, and I strongly urge the unions to put this to their members".
Yeh right. What about being "extremely concerned" about the effect a real drop in income of c 40% has had on the morale of higher education? What about the fact that any half decent academic with a transferable skill (ie, not Scots law :-) and not actually chained here by family or other ties, would if he had any sense, move to the US and earn twice as much and get some respect, not to mention decent administrative back up? What about the fact that while other public sector workers for the public good - doctors, nurses, teachers, firemen, police - are always treated as underpaid heroes of the revolution, while academics are treated like misbehaving children if thay ask for a wage even vaguely consistent with their hours, years of training, skill levels and stress levels?
AS I've said before, for me, this strike isn't about money. I have huge amounts of empathy for the people for whom it is : I was one of them very recently. But I'm in the happy moral high ground of knowing that this strike is likely to make very little difference to me monetarily. I'm in it because I want my profession to be VALUED. In the US, you can count that value in dollars. In Germany and Italy and France, salaries vary, but you can count it in prestige, in public recognition of your status. In the UK, the general view is that academics are social drones who do the job as a hobby while living on their inherited old money, or (if female) their husband. Hell why pay them at all? They'd do it for free, poor dorks, just for the chance to teach classes of 300 while trying to publish for the RAE, write grant applications which usually get rejected, dealing with endless whinging consumerist students who think they've bought a guaranteed 2:1 with their student loan*, and doing endless fucking QA garbage. Yeh, really glamorous, non time consuming, hobby. Show me a modern academic under 40, who doesn't work unpaid overtime every day at least half the year, who *actually* takes more than a standard holiday allowance even though in theory we can ("Have you finished for the summer then?" is my quintessential blood boiling question), who hasn't at some point suffered from depression, alcoholism, CFS, migraines, or some kind of persistent bad health as a result of the sheer stress of the job nowadays. And I'll show you a pink panda.
And I'm sorry guys, but to me this is much more significant than fucking breastfeeding icons.
* Ironic laugh of yesterday: the latest two students who are threatening to sue because they aren't going to get their degree on time are two women, one a fashion student, one doing English and media studies. Yeh, because they were SO about to walk instantly into a job :-)
**EDIT 2: And five minutes ago guidance for our students comes round which informs them that "It is hoped that the Boards would meet within a fortnight of the cessation of the dispute, but we have no way of knowing when the dispute will end. " Do you begin to see why I was sneakily , er , looking over papers on the train? In a typical year (not this year thank christ) , I'd have had half of 200- 250 family ordinary papers to mark, the same number of property ordinary papers: plus Honours, and Masters marking. that's a good month of someone working as fast as they can before their brain dribbles out their ears. (oh and 5-10 dissertations for both Hons and Masters to mark. And all the second marking. Fun fun fun..)
