Great to have the support of the @RMTunion today at our #UCU #Aberystwyth #UCURising picket. Diolch yn fawr i chi.
And thanks guys for the chocolates ☺️ @ucu
UK Higher Education Strike
I am grateful to the many students from our MSc programmes expressing support for staff in their strike aims.
Those pink sashes make a lovely addition to the graduation robes!
📣 The UK university sector is at breaking point & staff are standing up for a better future for this fundamental public institution #UCUstrike
Why❓
✅ Improving working conditions
✅ Reversing large pension cuts
✅ Tackling inequalities
✅ Stopping pay cuts.
Staff's working conditions are students' learning conditions.
Who/Where❓ librarians, IT workers, admin & professional services, early career researchers, academics… at 150 UK universities.
Scenes from #Edinburgh today 👇 #ucuRISING
This bit feels even more relevant for today's #UCU #strike #ucuRISING
For many years, academics accepted relatively low pay (relative to their skill level) and long hours in exchange for relative #autonomy at work and a dignified retirement. That #socialContract has been torn up under a decade of #marketisation. The supply of “good will” (i.e. #underpaid and #unpaidLabour) that has kept #universities running for a long time is now close to zero. Even if the employers win in this dispute, it will be a #Phyrric victory, or a Carthaginian one — creating a desert and calling it peace. Unless vice-chancellors change course, #workplace relations will be poisoned for a generation and universities will become increasingly #dysfunctional.
[The Seven Deadly Sins of Marketisation in British Higher Education by Lee Jones](https://medium.com/@drleejones/the-seven-deadly-sins-of-marketisation-in-british-higher-education-c91102a04a8f)
@pavlosvas1 oh this is an excellent article, thanks for sharing!
Britští akademici dnes zahájili protestní stávku. Požadují mimo jiné vyšší platy (bez rozdílu na gender/etnický původ), kratší pracovní týden (35 hodin), konec prekarizace a systematický boj proti vyhoření a stresu z přepracovanosti.
Mají na to univerzitní odbory (UCU).
🐾 Wish we could be at the picket lines in Edinburgh, but we struggle a wee bit in social situations… HOWEVER, we have endured an unwanted bath in support of #UCUstrikes, and we sent our human to the picket and the rally #DogsOnPickets #UCUrising #Dachshunds
I had a great time studying in the UK, so today I'm especially thinking of some of the great lecturers I've had, but also librarians and researchers I've interacted and worked with, who are striking, again, because you should be heard, and deserve so much better. #UCURising #UCUStrike
My university thinks marching strikers on the pavement outside the uni need a security escort. Not at all sinister! #ucurising
As UK academics are once more on strike, here is an extremely informative read by
Dr. Lee Jones on the impact of the marketization of higher education on students and staff
#Strikes #UCU If you pay peanuts, you get pickets.
Massive turnout for the #UCU strikes at Cardiff University.
At a big rally now, in defence of our pensions, pay, and conditions.
Spent the morning on the pickets outside my own building.
#UCURISING
For more info on the strikes check out: https://www.ucu.org.uk/rising
Thoughts go out to all the University staff who are on strike today. I know it is never easy for educators to decide to strike, and when they do they often feel guilty for doing so.
📣 I work 12 hr days + on wknds because I believe in universities. But I’m now paid much 👇 less than I was 6 yrs ago. I juggle teaching, supervision, research/course admin, research, funding applications and more, but my university keeps asking for 👆more!!
We are broken. Enough is enough #UCUrising
On the picket line (in the rain) this morning trying to ask uni's for better conditions, pay and pensions for uni staff. Hard to see how we will retain staff or encourage students this is a good career choice if things continue as is. #ExeterUCU #UCURising #UCU #FalmouthUCU
I’ll never forget how, at the University of York, when our lecturers and tutors were on strike, the University reacted in the wildest way. Rather than put the withheld pay back into the pockets of staff, it gave students ‘affected’ by strikes free graduation gowns?! And we had no choice in the matter.
https://www.yorkpress.co.uk/news/16330211.university-york-graduation-gowns-paid-strikers-pay/
Solidarity with #UCU, people are too ready to screw you over. #UCURising
Postgraduate researcher studying #CondensedMatter, in particular #SoftMatter, #ActiveMatter, #MolecularBiology, #CellBiology, #PhaseTransitions, and #ComplexSystems using the tools of #TheoreticalPhysics, #BioPhysics, #StatisticalPhysics, #FluidDynamics, #ComputationalPhysics, and #Simulation.
For instance, one of the projects I'm working on at the moment addresses #universality in active #turbulence with #spectral techniques. A related project predicts a new microphase separation regime in inhomogeneous active #nematics by simulating the coupled #CahnHilliard, #NavierStokes, and #BerisEdwards equations. Another project develops a #FieldTheory of the #orderphobic effect, a nonspecific interaction between #transmembrane bodies anchored in a #lipid #bilayer.
My other interests include #cycling, #ArchLinux, #Linux, #LibreSoftware, learning #Korean, #yoga, #calisthenics, #singing, #autonomy, #Cooperatives, #DeliberativeDemocracy, #CitizensAssemblies, #ParticipatoryDemocracy, #DemocraticInnovation, #OpenDemocracy, #LibertarianSocialism, #RightToRepair, #democracy, #humanism, #rationalism, #OpenScience, #science, #CommunityEmpowerment, #community, #commons, #research, #wikis, #governance.