What a bunch of pompous assh*les. I spoke to a lecturer the other day and he told me everything is online. Undergrads are getting a sh*t deal for sure.
the tl;dr of it is this: stagnating wages, huge cuts to academic pensions, big and unaddressed gender/wage/disability pay gap, and most staff early in their careers work on rolling short-term contracts.
the rolling short-term contracts are brutal, and the pension cut is a slap in the face, particularly because funded PhDs are studentships, not jobs, and they pay an annual stipend (normally not much above minimum wage) instead of a salary.
furthermore, the ‘publish or perish’ mentality in academic jobs means that strikers are implicitly punished; at the end of these contracts, you are assessed on the amount of work you’ve done in the time you’ve had (number of papers published, number of citations, etc). any time you spend on strike is time out of that. you’re really just hurting your own career.
my heart goes out to the undergrads who are paying £9000 a year for a truly shit university experience, but they are victims of the same exploitation as academic staff
Universities are in this sweet spot: you pay them 10k a year (plus accommodation and other services) but they offer no guarantee in return. If you get a degree, great! If not, oh well, no refunds. So they are uniquely well placed to just not deliver their product to their customers.
3 comments
What a bunch of pompous assh*les. I spoke to a lecturer the other day and he told me everything is online. Undergrads are getting a sh*t deal for sure.
the tl;dr of it is this: stagnating wages, huge cuts to academic pensions, big and unaddressed gender/wage/disability pay gap, and most staff early in their careers work on rolling short-term contracts.
the rolling short-term contracts are brutal, and the pension cut is a slap in the face, particularly because funded PhDs are studentships, not jobs, and they pay an annual stipend (normally not much above minimum wage) instead of a salary.
furthermore, the ‘publish or perish’ mentality in academic jobs means that strikers are implicitly punished; at the end of these contracts, you are assessed on the amount of work you’ve done in the time you’ve had (number of papers published, number of citations, etc). any time you spend on strike is time out of that. you’re really just hurting your own career.
my heart goes out to the undergrads who are paying £9000 a year for a truly shit university experience, but they are victims of the same exploitation as academic staff
Universities are in this sweet spot: you pay them 10k a year (plus accommodation and other services) but they offer no guarantee in return. If you get a degree, great! If not, oh well, no refunds. So they are uniquely well placed to just not deliver their product to their customers.