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
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
On #strike outside the King's College London #KCL Maughan Library with #UNISON #union with our #UCU colleagues. We are striking for fairer pay, fairer workloads and more action on pay gaps. A decade of below-inflation pay rises is not good enough #WereWorthMore #UCUrising
We need change, we need respect, we need security. For us, for our students, for junior and precarious colleagues. Enough is enough. #ucuRISING #UCUstrike
Strikes at UK universities
For 4 yrs I have taught #LAWS10218 Criminologies of Atrocity w @mjgn92
For a 4th yr, students miss seminars because of strike action.
I am under no illusion. This is a consequence of my decision to strike. They lose. I lose.
But behind that are years of University "leaders" refusing to engage and
* suppressing wages
* presiding over inequalities
* increasing workloads
* casualising the workforce
* allowing pensions to be slashed
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.