Strike 2020 - an update

In the fall, we blogged about what the union's demands are in the two disputes that are currently going on. I have excerpted the key demands from the older blogpost to refresh your memory
In other words, what exactly does UCU want to change?

Here is the concrete action UCU is asking for on each of the issues that the strike is about:

• Pensions: 'No detriment'. This means that any changes to the pension scheme should not result in higher costs to members, or in lower pension payments. University employees accepted cuts to the pension in 2011. In October 2011 future members of USS lost 65% of their pension wealth, equivalent to a reduction of roughly 11% in their total compensation. That is, in 2011 the total life-time pay for university employees was reduced by 11%. Now we are asking for no further reduction: We don't think this is asking for a lot!
• Casualisation: 'Stamp out casualisation.' UCU demands firm and measurable commitments reducing casualisation in higher education. Russel Group Universities have recently acknowledged that casualisation negatively impacts mental health, family planning, the research power of universities, and student learning. The problem of casualisation goes beyond teaching staff, and UCU are committed to ending the gig economy in higher education. Again, we don't think it's a lot to ask that staff at universities, where students are paying between £9250 and £34,660, should be entitled to benefits like sick pay and maternity leave. There are several blogposts on our blog (here and here) detailing some of the problem from personal experience. 
• Pay inequality: 'Equal pay for equal work.' What year is it? 1952? Oh no, wait, it's 2019 and women, people from BAME backgrounds and people with disabilities are still getting paid less than their white, male, able-bodied colleagues. UCU is calling for measurable commitments on this disgraceful inequality. UCEA is not willing to talk about pay. A personal view on this issue can be found here. 
• Unsustainable workloads: 'An end to occupational stress and bullying.' UCU wants all of the work we do - administrative, pastoral, teaching-related, supervisory, research-related - to be fairly counted, and for workloads to be managed in a fair way. The fact that universities including UCL are threatening to withhold 100% of pay for employees who are working to rule by working a standard 36.5 hour week demonstrates that they know it is impossible for us to complete our contracted tasks in that time. Our series of posts on What I would be doing if I weren't striking (here, here, and here) gives you a flavour. 
• Falling pay: 'A real-terms pay rise'. UCU is asking for a pay rise of RPI+3%, or a minimum increase of £3,349 (whichever is greater). This is to address the fact that, over the last decade, our pay has fallen by 20%. At the same time, average rents in London have risen by as much as 30%. But not everyone is worse off - university Vice-Chancellors' pay (including UCL Provost Michael Arthur) rose by 13% between 2009 and 2017. Students are paying more fees than ever - where is your money going? 

The main argument that UCU is putting forward is that there is a link between the disputes. In brief, the money to address the issues that don't have to do with pensions is there; universities have just chosen to pay that money into the pension fund. That probably sounds strange and non-sensical, so do read on.

The pensions scheme for university lecturers, the University Superannuation Scheme (USS), was set up as a defined benefit final salary scheme. 'Defined benefit' means that the payouts are guaranteed and set down in the rules of the scheme. 'Final salary' means that the guaranteed payouts are calculated as a percentage of an employee's salary just before they retire. In 2011 these rules were changed. For incomes up to £55,000 per year, the pension scheme remained a defined benefit scheme but the benefits were now calculated on the basis of the employee's average salary rather than their final salary. One's average salary over a lifetime is, of course, much lower than one's final salary. For salaries about £55,000 per year, USS was shifted to a defined contribution scheme, which means that employers and employees pay in a defined percentage of the salary but that what is paid out is not guaranteed but depends on how the investments made by USS perform. As mentioned above, this change amounted to an 11% cut in life-time compensation for new members of USS.

From the perspective of university staff, this massive cut in compensation was, of course, a bad thing. From the perspective of the universities, it was a good thing, as it reduced their potential liabilities: Pensions they would have to pay for were reduced and if USS investments underperformed, the shortfall would be to the detriment of the pensioners but would not create future costs and liabilities for the universities. In 2017, the universities argued for further changes in the pension scheme. The employers suggested to change the scheme completely from a defined benefits scheme to a defined contribution scheme. This change, employers claimed, was needed because a valuation of the scheme showed that it was in deficit. This valuation was widely criticised as flawed, including by the joint panel of experts set up by the union and the universities. However, that valuation has lead on October 1 2019 to an increase in contributions that employees and employers have to pay into the pension scheme for the moment (the employer contribution went up from 18% to 21.1% now with a planned increase to 23.7% in 2021). If the universities relented and pushed USS to accept a modified valuation of the scheme, then employer and employee contributions to the pension scheme could drop back. This would free up money that employers are currently paying into the pension fund. This money could be used to finance pay increases and to tackle the issues of pay inequality and casualisation.

It is the insistence of the employers on the negative valuation of USS that locks up the money that could be used to deal with the other issues. This insistence is rooted in the employers' aim of turning USS into a defined contribution scheme to the further detriment of employees. Universities need to start negotiate in good faith and in earnest on these issues and respect the recommendation of the Joint Expert Panel that was set up as a result of the strike in 2018.

As a result of our strike and student pressure, there appears to be some movement in the negotiations. It is important now to keep up the pressure. Please write to the provost again. and ask for UCL to push UUK and UCEA to table acceptable offers so that we can end this strike swiftly.

Strike School 2 - Week 1

We now have something like a programme for the first week of the strike school.

It is linked from the top of the page and here, but you will need to check back frequently as this an evolving programme. As you can see, we still don't know what will happen on Wednesday or where most of the events of the week will take place. You can always come to the picket in front of Chandler House before 12:00 and we will know where to go.

Please share this information widely and check back regularly for updates.

• Monday, March 02 2020: 12:30 upstairs at the Lamb.  Richard Breheny will give a talk on Pragmatics and Political Discourse. Please bring a 3G/4G enabled device since we will most likely not be able to project slides and you will have to view them on your own device. 
• Tuesday, March 03 2020: 12:30 upstairs at the Lamb. Andrea Santi will talk about "Gender Proportions Across Academic Levels (Leaky Pipeline): Consequences and What Can be Done?"  
• Thursday, March 05 2020: 12:30 at The Place (London School of Contemporary Dance, 17 Duke's Road, WC1H 9PY) Hans van de Koot will give a talk called "(Mind) the copula gap: Or why Black English Vernacular is as ‘normal’ as the next language" Please bring your own lunch to this event, as you won't be able to buy food or drink at the venue. 

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. 

Back to reality + ASOS

After eight days of strike action, UCU members and supporters were back to work today. It was a day of mixed feelings.

 Firstly, we are still high on yesterday's joint action with IWGB, culminating in a march and rally:

(From @LionelOpenshaw)

Sometimes you just need to get your chant on!

Our hearts are also still glowing from all the support we saw from our students during the strike. You joined us at Strike School, you donated food and hot drinks to picketers, and you came to chat with us on the picket lines. We can't thank you enough!

We're also heartened that the universities are making some (barely perceptible) moves towards listening to us. They have agreed to talk about some of the issues, and we hope that these talks will be fruitful.

The bad news is that no measurable progress has been made towards ending casualisation, pay inequality, unsustainable workloads, and falling pay, and UUK seems to be moving ahead with their plans to increase our pension costs, with the likely result of putting the whole scheme at risk.

This means that our fight is not over. Now that the strike action is over, UCU are asking their members to engage in ASOS - no, not that ASOS! We mean Action Short of a Strike. A large component of ASOS is working to rule, also known as working to contract. This means following our contracts to the letter, but not undertaking any additional duties that fall outside our contracts. This might include not working for more hours than we are being paid for (the average lecturer works around 20 unpaid hours a week), not attending meetings where our attendance is voluntary, and not covering for colleagues who are absent or were on strike. UCU's guidance on what ASOS means for university staff can be found here. (It's worth pointing out that the questions discussed at that link give an indication of how vague and ill-defined many of our contracts are.)

During ASOS, we will continue to teach, research, complete marking, set assignments, and answer emails. But all of these tasks might take a bit longer, because we will only be doing them while we're being paid for them. Some universities, including UCL, have threatened to withhold 100% of pay for staff taking part in ASOS, which is a tacit acknowledgment that it is impossible for us to do our jobs to a satisfactory standard in the time we're being paid for.

It is also possible that further strike action will take place this academic year. This has not been decided on, and it very much depends on the actions of the employers in response to the issues we have raised. We will keep you updated here with any details as they emerge.

We will continue updating the blog from time to time, but less frequently than we did during the strike. If you have any issues you would like us to cover - any questions you'd like us to answer, any themes you'd like us to discuss, or any stories you'd like to share - please email them to us, or leave a comment.

See you in class!

What I would be doing if I weren't striking II

This is the second 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...

The goal is to try and encourage equal representation on postgraduate programmes

I’m sure most of you are familiar with the teaching and research/supervision related work we are all engaged in. So I thought I would tell you about two other University-based projects I was working on over the week prior to the strike to give you a broader perspective on our roles:

I am a member of the PALS Career Development, Equality and Diversity (CDED) committee.  We meet termly and we are currently completing an Athena SWAN Award application (PALS currently has a silver and we’re looking to renew it).  I am responsible for the postgraduate teaching (PGT) section which involves data analysis and actions to improve gender equality.  PALS has 21 PGT programmes and on average these are made up of 80% females and 20% males. A few programmes diverge from this with either a more balanced representation of males and females or even lower percentages of males, but largely the programmes hover around this proportion. The goal is to try and encourage equal representation (yes, a difficult task – ideas welcome!). In addressing an action for the current submission, I have been interfacing with PGT programme directors and divisional management in proposing more inclusive PGT marketing materials across the division.  Currently PALS has 25 male videos and 13 female videos (locating these videos across the websites was a task on its own).  These efforts resulted in the commission of 34 “Meet the Researcher” videos to be made and linked to each of the PGT programme websites with an equal representation of male and female videos.  I am now at the stage of interfacing with the videographer and programme representatives to ensure a smooth completion of the project.

Another task I have been working on is establishing a BSc Experimental Linguistics strand on the BA international programme.  Many students have felt torn between choosing the BA Ling with the year abroad and the BSc with more training in experimental methods.  A BSc strand on the International Programme would more collectively satisfy some students’ needs. After the BA teaching committee informally discussed and approved the proposal going ahead, I completed a formal application. This involves interfacing with the external examiner, Study Abroad Team, and teaching support staff for input.  The next step will be putting it through to the faculty for approval.

I’m looking forward to getting back to these projects among others soon!

What have unions ever done for us?

Some people who cross the picket line and choose to work during a strike do so because they don't support unions. That is, of course, their right: this is an issue that people dedicate a lot of thought to, especially when they are faced with the prospect of crossing a picket line staffed by their colleagues. It's a difficult choice to make, and no one does so lightly.

But it got us to thinking: why do we support the idea of unions? Why should anyone?

Firstly, unions fight for all workers. The rights and benefits that they win apply to everyone in the workplace, not just union members. Striking staff members are striking not just for themselves, but also for people who can't afford to strike (perhaps due to a casualised contract) and those who choose not to for other reasons.

Unions are also the only way for workers to bargain collectively with their employer. Without a union, employers would have to meet with each worker separately to try to understand how that worker feels about their job. Aside from the fact that such a situation is untenable in an institution like UCL (it has 13,360 employees!), this makes workers' concerns a lot easier to ignore, and leaves workers without much leverage to change conditions they don't like.

What kind of conditions are we talking about? Well here is a (non-exhaustive) list of some of the rights that unions have won for their workers over the years:

• weekends
• an end to child labour
• the ability to hold employers to their contracts, meaning a more equal relationship between worker and employer
• a safe workplace (that's not likely to injure you or make you sick)
• being able to negotiate as a group with the employer (known as 'collective bargaining')
• a minimum wage (in 1998 in the UK!!!)
• equal pay for equal work (e.g. for men and women doing the same job - in 1970 in the UK!)
• limits to working time, including the 40-hour work week
• paid time for holidays, including recent increases to annual leave entitlements
• lower pay inequality across the income spectrum, including in non-unionised workplaces
• employment protection rules, including rules about hiring and firing workers fairly 

If you've ever had a job (and if you didn't have a job as a child!), you've almost certainly benefitted from these rights, so go out and thank your closest union member. 

Whether you're a student or a staff member at UCL, you stand to gain from sustainable workloads at universities, an end to casualisation, an end to gender/race/disability pay gaps, an end to real-terms pay cuts, and protecting the USS pension scheme, and we're fighting for you. We're losing at least eight days of pay to make universities better places to work for everyone. So please, do what you can to support our strike: choose not to cross the picket line, write to the provost, donate to the fighting funds if you can. And come talk to us, about unions or anything else, at Strike School!

Bias in teaching evaluations

This weekend's reading list focuses on an issue we've all had experience with, students and teachers alike.

It's getting towards the end of term, and you know what that means: student feedback forms for all of your lectures. But there's a few things you might not know about these teaching evaluations.

Firstly, the government intends to use your feedback on teaching (specifically in the form of the National Student Survey, or NSS) to allow universities to charge you higher tuition fees, through something called the Teaching Excellence Framework or TEF. Some people (including the British Medical Association) think this alone is a good enough reason to boycott the NSS, but we'll leave that up to you.

Secondly, your lecturers and TAs actually read the anonymous feedback you give, and take it to heart. This can be a very nice feeling, like when a student notices something we've worked hard to improve or appreciates the extra effort we've gone to, or a very bad feeling, like when a student makes negative comments about our appearance, our personality or our intelligence. In fact, almost every one of the countless articles online that advise lecturers on how to deal with student feedback has advice along the lines of 'don't take it personally'. We cherish every positive comment we get, often for years, but the negative ones can sting pretty badly.

Finally, and most importantly, it has been established that teaching evaluations are subject to all kinds of bias. Women and people of colour consistently receive worse feedback than their white, male colleagues. (Very little research is done on bias in teaching evaluations against non-heterosexual people, people with disabilities, and non-gender conforming people.) Because teaching evaluations are often used in decisions about who to hire or who to promote, bias in teaching evaluations can lead to fewer women and people of colour progressing in their careers.

That's why this topic relevant to this blog: bias in teaching evaluations contributes to pay inequalities and more time spent on zero-hours and casualised contracts for the victims of that bias. This in turn leads to lower pensions for women and people of colour, since the introduction of career-average pensions.

To be clear, we don't want to do away with teaching evaluations completely: they are a very useful tool for us to improve our teaching and evaluate changes we've made in our modules (this is especially true when we use them during the term, when there is still time to make changes). Additionally, hearing students' perspectives can let us see things in a new light, giving us fresh ideas and highlighting areas for improvement. We really welcome constructive feedback!

But we reject to their use as a tool for university administrators to evaluate and decide on the worth of teaching staff individually and departments as a whole. We think they are another brick in the wall of corporatization in higher education. And we certainly reject the idea of linking good feedback to higher tuition fees.

So what can you do to help? You can keep all this in mind the next time a teaching evaluation comes your way. You can query members UCL's Senior Management Team on what they're doing to address these issues. You can contact your local parliamentary candidates about what they intend to do about the TEF. And you can continue to support our strike to fight back against casualisation, pay inequality, and damage to our pensions.

You can read more about bias in teaching evaluations, and why it's bad for both students and teachers, at the following links.

• Gender and cultural bias in student evaluations: Why representation matters
• Students Evaluating Teachers Doesn’t Just Hurt Teachers. It Hurts Students.
• Student Evaluations and Gendered Expectations: What We Can't Count Can Hurt Us
• Student Evaluations: Feared, Loathed, and Not Going Anywhere
• Student Evaluations, Grade Inflation, and Declining Student Effort
• Student Evaluations of Teaching are Not Valid 

What are we hoping to accomplish?

You might agree with UCU that casualisation, falling pay, unsustainable workloads, pay inequality, and rising pension costs are bad, but maybe you think there's not much to be done about them. Isn't life getting harder for everyone? And how exactly are universities supposed to bring about change in areas like workloads or pay inequality?

In other words, what exactly does UCU want to change?

Firstly, UCU is asking UCEA, the body that represents universities in the UK, to sit down and have a grown-up conversation about what can actually be done. This morning at Bentham House, representatives from UCU and UCEA are meeting to talk about the Four Fights dispute. UCEA have said the talks are 'without pre-conditions'... except they refuse to talk about pay! If universities are not willing to talk about pay (including pay inequality for women, ethnic minorities and people with disabilities, as well as falling real-terms pay), how do they expect to do anything about addressing these issues? If you want to ask employers this question, you can join the demonstration from 9:30 at the main entrance of Friends Meeting House (near Euston).

Here is the concrete action UCU is asking for on each of the issues:

• Pensions: 'No detriment'. This means that any changes to the pension scheme should not result in higher costs to members, or in lower pension payments. We don't think this is asking for a lot!
• Casualisation: 'Stamp out casualisation.' Universities are insisting that casualisation is a local issue - i.e. an issue that affect each university differently. This clearly misses the bigger picture. However, UCU are engaging individual universities in the fight on casualisation. Their demands include ensuring that all hourly-paid teaching staff (which includes most of your PGTAs as well as some Teaching Fellows and other teaching staff) to be employed on a (non-zero-hours) contract. The problem of casualisation goes beyond teaching staff, and UCU are committed to ending the gig economy in higher education. Again, we don't think it's a lot to ask that staff at universities, where students are paying between £9250 and £34,660, should be entitled to benefits like sick pay and maternity leave. 
• Pay inequality: 'Equal pay for equal work.' What year is it? 1952? Oh no, wait, it's 2019 and women, people from BAME backgrounds and people with disabilities are still getting paid less than their white, male, able-bodied colleagues. UCU is calling for meaningful action on this disgraceful inequality. UCEA is not willing to talk about pay. 
• Unsustainable workloads: 'An end to occupational stress and bullying.' UCU wants all of the work we do - administrative, pastoral, teaching-related, supervisory, research-related - to be fairly counted, and for workloads to be managed in a fair way. The fact that universities including UCL are threatening to withhold 100% of pay for employees who are working to rule by working a standard 36.5 hour week demonstrates that they know it is impossible for us to complete our contracted tasks in that time. 
• Falling pay: 'A real-terms pay rise'. UCU is asking for a pay rise of RPI+3%, or a minimum increase of £3,349 (whichever is greater). This is to address the fact that, over the last decade, our pay has fallen by 20%. At the same time, average rents in London have risen by as much as 30%. But not everyone is worse off - university Vice-Chancellors' pay (including UCL Provost Michael Arthur) rose by 13% between 2009 and 2017. Students are paying more fees than ever - where is your money going? 

More detail on UCU's demands can be found in this document from UCU.

Maybe you agree that things should change, but think that all these demands will just cost too much? UCL's UCU branch have shown that addressing issues with the USS pension will leave plenty of money left over to address the other demands (follow the link to the slides). UUK are currently paying to devalue our pensions!

UCL UCU are not alone. The Guardian's recent editorial shows that universities can and should pay to fix these problems. UCU shows that universities' income, surpluses and reserves are rising. Even the Vice-Chancellor of Essex University agrees that universities can pay more!

We hope you agree that our demands are not unreasonable. If so, we'd ask you to show your support however you can. 

Language and sexism reading list

Happy Friday! To whet your appetites for our Strike School next week, and to keep you busy over the weekend, we are happy to present our first reading list, on language and sexism. Below you'll find a few papers, books and links from fields represented in Chandler House to get you thinking about some topics you wouldn't normally hear about in class. Take a look, and then come discuss with striking staff on the picket lines or at our Strike School!

We hope to release a number of themed reading lists throughout the strike. If you have an idea for a reading list, send it along to our email.

• Chao, Monika, and Julia Bursten. "Heard but misunderstood: Understanding negative reactions to female vocal fry." m.s. (2016). 
• Hancock, Adrienne B., Holly Wilder Stutts, and Annie Bass. “Perceptions of Gender and Femininity Based on Language: Implications for Transgender Communication Therapy.” Language and Speech 58, no. 3 (2015): 315–33. doi:10.1177/0023830914549084. 
• Kahn, Lynda G. "Sexism in Everyday Speech." Social Work 20, no. 1 (1975): 65-67. www.jstor.org/stable/23711988. 
• Litosseliti, Lia and Claire Leadbeater. "Speech and language therapy/pathology: Perspectives on a gendered profession." International Journal of Language & Communication Disorders 48 (2013): 90-101. doi:10.1111/j.1460-6984.2012.00188.x
• Macaulay, Monica, and Colleen Brice. "Don't touch my projectile: Gender bias and stereotyping in syntactic examples." Language 73, no. 4 (1997): 798-825. doi:10.2307/417327. 
• Oman-Reagan, Michael. "Sexism in the Oxford Dictionary of English." medium.com (2016). 
• Slater, Anne & Saul Feinman. "Gender and the phonology of North American first names." Sex Roles 13, no. 7-8 (1985): 429-440. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00287953

You might also be interested in a This American Life segment on vocal fry.