Dear Universities UK + the Universities and Colleges Employers Association: The UK cannot become a global “science superpower” if it provides relatively low (compared to the countries/systems it’s competing with) pay, benefits (esp. pension) & conditions. https://www.theguardian.com/education/2022/nov/24/more-than-70000-uk-university-staff-go-on-strike-over-pay-and-pensions #UCUstrike #ucuRISING 1/2
@KrisOlds
The same holds true for Germany, in a way.
University is cheap (I pay about 400€ every six months, per semester, and there’s a good, cheap Cafeteria available), but for my mandatory university internship, at the #wendelstein7x no less, I was… Not paid for four months, had to weasel around some paperwork to get 900€/month for two months, then finally minimum wage for the last two.
Meanwhile, CERN’s Technical Studentship unconditionally gives you 3.3kCHF a month. Just like that!
It feels a bit like it’s telling me where my work is more valued.
Add to that the somewhat “boring” tariffs that the TVöG requires of German scientific institutions like the Wendelstein, which give fairly low pays for e.g. IT personnel…
