More on strike

[lnr]

I went along to the rally yesterday, and also talked to my mum about it at the end of the day. She forwarded me a letter which the NUS have put together for students, explaining some of why they are backing the strike. I've turned it from word doc into rough HTML and you can find it here:

http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~eleanorb/temp/nus-letter.html

I know some people still think that given the average salary of academics appears to be somewhere around 35K (not the > 40K claimed by the UCEA) we're being greedy in asking for more. Consider however that in many cases these academics could be earning more as doctors, lawyers and even in some cases as teachers. Perhaps that's not enough reason. I can't seem to manage to express any better why I think this pay claim *is* reasonable, and I admit I find it very frustrating to be so bad at arguing my point.

I'm kind of sad how small a proportion of the staff in Cambridge are members of AUT though, and how small a rally can be and still be an excellent turnout. I'm glad I showed my support though. And I'll be self-reporting as being on action short of a strike even if they do say they'll dock full days pay for it, despite the fact it make no difference to my work in practice.

My mum also forwarded me the letter which their vice-chancellor sent to all staff about the strike and the consequences with respect to pay. I have to say it's a complete eye-opener when you see how much more reasonable it is than the similar letter I received in Cambridge.

Comments

[jvvw.livejournal.com]

Why do you think you're not underpaid but that lecturers not out of curiosity? I suppose it vaguely interests me because I have similar qualifications to an academic (PhD plus one postdoc), but do an IT job in a university instead. That extra experience probably has some value though nonetheless. Do you think I should be paid more than you are because I've 'trained' for longer?

[lnr]

It's a good question. The qualifications I have are not in the area I'm working in, and anyway aren't worth the paper they're printed on in a lot of ways, and to be honest I don't feel like I'm very *good* at my job. Plus it's a *lot* more than the office jobs which are the only other work I've done - admittedly only as summer work and to tide me over before getting a "real" job post university.

The amount you're paid in the job you're in probably has more to do with the amount of experience you have relevant to that job. So your PhD and postdoc skills would probably add more to your worth as an academic than they do to your worth in IT. Even in academia it seems easier to be paid lots for computing than for being an academic though :-)

[jvvw.livejournal.com]

I reckon I earn about the same at the moment as I would have done had I stayed in academia (but less than when I worked in the private sector!).

I suppose I don't feel that there is any particular reason why academics in general should be paid more than I am. (I'm not convinced that people should only be paid by the number of years experience they have in a field I guess).

There are an awful lot of perks and nice things associated with being an academic - not least an incredible amount of freedom to choose what you work on. I decided not to go down the academic route much more because of the whole short-term contract issue than because of the pay. I wanted a bit more career security. I think there are a whole number of issues that the AUT should be campaigning about but overall pay (as opposed to pay for particular subsections of the academic population) isn't one of the most important ones.