What I would be doing if I weren't striking

This is the third part in our series on how academic staff spend their time. Throughout the strike, we'll report from the frontline of unsustainable workloads. Have you ever wondered what a lecturer, a postdoc, a teaching fellow does outside of the classroom? Read on to find out...

As I drift off, I dread the even bigger backlog of unanswered email that will greet me tomorrow morning. 

It is Wednesday morning. After getting up and making breakfast for the kids, I hop on my bike and reach Tavistock Place at 8:30. Time to grab a cup of coffee and look at my email inbox. There is a big backlog of unanswered emails - it won't grow shorter today. I do answer a few urgent queries, respond to the moodle forum questions from students, promise to write three letters of recommendation by the end of reading week, then leave the coffee shop for Chandler House. 

At 9am, the tutorial for my class begins. I don't know this group particularly well, so the tutorial requires a lot of thinking on my feet: I have to adapt the material to the level of the students. I have to be nimble, but I enjoy it. At 10:55 the tutorial is over. 

Now it is 11:00 and I am teaching a small group session for advanced MA students. A student is presenting a paper and I try to figure out how to help them break down the author's and their own argumentation better. How do I explain what the relation between a (superficial) counterexample and a (solid) counterargument is? I don't feel I am getting through, but this time I am not nimble enough to change tack. The session is over at 12. Though I never got through to the student presenting, I think some of the other students got something out of it. At least I hope so. 

A number of new emails have come in, some with material that is relevant for the departmental committee meeting that I am charing at 1pm. I read these emails and summarise the content in preparation of the meeting. Why didn't I get this information earlier? Then I rush around the corner to get a falafel just before my meeting. 

The meeting runs until 2:15, which is quite quick given the long agenda. I can't linger to chat with colleagues, because I needed to be at the central campus for the next meeting at 2pm. I won't make it until 2:30.  At lesat, I don't have to chair this one. The second committee meeting ends at 3:30.  

I return to Chandler House. I had promised a PhD student feedback on a draft chapter. The draft is 45 pages long. I read it and comment on content and writing. It is now 5pm. I organise a Skype meeting with a colleague for next week to work on a paper draft and an in person meeting with another colleague to do some research-related brainstorming together. 

It would have been nice at this point to read some research papers from my long to-read list, to think about one of the half-finished papers, or to clear my head and write, but I have to go pick up my kids and make dinner. I only manage to do a bit of reading when the kids are in bed. At that time, my brain is not at its best. As I drift off, I dread the even bigger backlog of unanswered email that will greet me tomorrow morning. 

Case Study: Gender Pay Gap

We asked strikers to tell us about their personal experiences of how the themes of the strike have affected them. Below we hear from someone who has first-hand experience of the gender pay gap. According to UCL's published statistics, the gender pay gap at UCL amounts to 15.9%. The main reason for the discrepancy is that women make up more than half of the work force in lower paid jobs. This trend reverses for higher paid jobs (Associate Professor and above) where men all of a sudden dominate.

The comparison between my own and my wife's pay check always leaves me gasping.

My wife and I graduated with a Ph.D. in the same field, from the same university, and in the same year.  When our first child was born, we each took the same amount of parental leave. A decade after we had graduated from university, the difference in our career progression was stark. I had been in permanent employment for several years and had been promoted to Reader. My wife had just managed to move from precarious temporary employment to a beginning permanent lecturer position (at a university other than UCL).

When our second child was born, the difference between our incomes was so big, we couldn't afford to split parental leave: we needed my income and couldn't have gotten by on hers. Over the years, the situation has not changed substantially and the pay gap between us remains stubbornly at about 25% despite the fact that we have the same qualification from the same university with the same year of graduation and have been comparably active in terms of publications.

The gender pay gap at UK universities is real, it is shockingly high, and it is time the universities addressed it by giving the same opportunities of career advancement to men and to women.

Strike - Spring 2020 - where we stand

Echoing something we said in the fall: We were hoping it wouldn't come this - but here we are. The University and College Union has called 14 days of strikes at 74 universities across the United Kingdom. That's up from 59 universities in the fall. You can read more about what this means for you, and how to support us elsewhere on the blog.

We are back fighting over the same four issues that were already at the heart of the strike in the fall:

• Pensions
• Pay
• Pay equality
• Working conditions and casualization

You can read about the issues on the blog here. Unfortunately, the employers' organisations have virtually not shifted their position on these issues. Despite the threat of strikes and in the knowledge of the disruption that strikes would bring to your education, the universities have refused to make a new offer to the union over pay and pensions. As a result, we are still faced with a pay offer below inflation - a de facto pay cut. We are still faced with a detrimental deal on our pensions. We are still faced with pay inequality for gender and race, with casualisation and worsening working conditions. 

Unless the universities shift their position quickly, this means that UCL will be on strike on the following dates:

• Monday Feb 24 to Wednesday Feb 26
• Monday March 2 to Thursday March 5
• Monday March 9 to Friday March 13
• Thursday March 19 to Friday March 20

We hope that you will support the strike, our cause, and that you will email the provost to record your support and your annoyance at the disruption to your education. You can use the union's template here.