University lecturers strikes

Research. Not all academics teach and for some, teaching seems like an annoyance in the way of their research.

A lot of academic research is not directly applicable to industry and its related returns.

And to be honest a lot of academic research is not replicable.

Academic salaries generally aren’t terrible. They may not be as high as some good industry levels. But academics haven’t necessarily proved themselves as being at that level. But academics are afforded more freedom than their industrial counterparts.

I don’t really believe University pension schemes should be better than average as their members are voluntarily missing out on benefits offered to those outside of academia. And I speak as someone who is a member of the USS scheme.
 


A lot of academic research is not directly applicable to industry and its related returns.

And to be honest a lot of academic research is not replicable.

Academic salaries generally aren’t terrible. They may not be as high as some good industry levels. But academics haven’t necessarily proved themselves as being at that level. But academics are afforded more freedom than their industrial counterparts.

I don’t really believe University pension schemes should be better than average as their members are voluntarily missing out on benefits offered to those outside of academia. And I speak as someone who is a member of the USS scheme.
A lot of the staff striking are professional service staff, like IT, Finance, Admin, etc. All are well below the going rate in industry.
 
isnt this about being kicked out of their pension schemes ? if is, good luck to them , although hopefully resolved soon for kids who will be suffering with lectures etc
 
Anyone's kids been badly affected? The strikes feel in full swing now.

Been f***ing horrendous on our campus. It's not so much the striking, the cancelled lectures we're trying to piece together among ourselves from shit powerpoints or that - it's the fact our striking lecturers are being utter twats - blocking students getting into buildings completely unless they agree to sign their petition, standing outside buildings blasting airhorns and generally just making the whole atmosphere hellish to be around. We've got to do a piece of recording and analysing acoustic traces for assessment - and we just can't get a clean recording for the tits standing outside with the airhorns and blowing whistles like they're in a 90s rave. Can't get a clean recording of lectures as well either which is going to suck for my revision (I'm dyslexic so rely on my audio note taking software).

Uni are being equal arseholes to the striking lecturers as well though - students just caught in the middle of it all.
 
Disgrace this what's going on and nobody caring, universities who are now only interested in making money and lecturers who obviously don't give a toss about the students, they should be refunding part of the fees if they won't teach the kids. Best part of £60 k my daughters debts going to be and for that she will have no contact for the last 8 weeks of her degree. I assume they will get marked up results since they can't be bothered to teach classes
 
A lot of the staff striking are professional service staff, like IT, Finance, Admin, etc. All are well below the going rate in industry.

Sorry, have just seen this response.

I’m in the category you mention and I’m not paid well below the going rate in industry. We did a benchmarking exercise and we’re not badly off at all.
 
Sorry, have just seen this response.

I’m in the category you mention and I’m not paid well below the going rate in industry. We did a benchmarking exercise and we’re not badly off at all.
Good. Some places are starting to realise.

We have lost a lot of good staff who's heads were turned by more money elsewhere.
 
Seeing as they're putting the starting teacher salary up to £30k, I can see university lecturers starting salaries having to increase from the current circa £35k.

Considering they usually have to do an extra 3 or 4 years of study over that of a school teacher, plus compete for far fewer jobs.
 
Disgrace this what's going on and nobody caring, universities who are now only interested in making money and lecturers who obviously don't give a toss about the students, they should be refunding part of the fees if they won't teach the kids. Best part of £60 k my daughters debts going to be and for that she will have no contact for the last 8 weeks of her degree. I assume they will get marked up results since they can't be bothered to teach classes

We've been assured that nothing we've missed out on will be on the exam. I don't believe it since our main guy on strike is one who's recycled the same exam papers and PowerPoints for at least 10 years and I can't see him suddenly deciding to re-write the exam paper.

Currently most of the course are working from me sitting and piecing the missing content together from our original lecture outlines. We've finally managed to get previous year's lecture recordings uploaded to have some ability to work around it ourselves - if I could get the accreditation I needed from self-study without the uni course, debt and shitty commute - I'd be doing that anyway! The university have behaved about as badly - both sides basically bickering like kids trying to get the students caught in the middle to take sides and fight the battle for them. I've currently lost all sympathy for both sides of it... plus the library is f***ing rammed with people trying to get caught up on the work they're not getting taught, or coming in and finding they're sat twiddling their thumbs as the lecture's cancelled yet again.
 

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