What does an unmanageable workload look like?

Unreasonable workloads are one of the key disputes of our strike, but it’s hard to pinpoint exactly what ‘unreasonable’ looks like - especially in academia. This is something we talk about a lot on the picket line, and really it seems that everyone feels overworked in a different way. Often, these differences can become sore points, or even points of conflict, between colleagues: “So-and-so can’t be overworked because they’re always available for school pick-ups” while “People without kids don’t know the meaning of overwork!” At the same time, knowing that someone else might be worse off makes struggling staff members reluctant to speak up about their own overwork: “I can’t complain really, at least I have a permanent contract/get home by 6 most nights/am getting some teaching experience”

Our series on “What I would be doing if I weren’t striking” gives you some idea of these issues, as well as some insight into issues around pay inequality and precarious working conditions. But one thing you might not realise is how little these issues are talked about within universities. In fact, many striking staff members have been surprised - and heartened - to hear they are not alone in feeling overwhelmed. Research, and even teaching, can be very isolating pursuits and no one wants to be the first to admit that they aren’t managing as well as their colleagues. The picket line has been a place to share our struggles, get tips on coping, and be reassured that we’re not alone. 

So, with these thoughts in mind, here are a few ways in which overwork manifests itself in Chandler House and in departments across the UK. All are valid and none of them should be considered normal in a place of higher education. 

• regularly forgoing sleeping or eating in favour of working
• not having time or energy to buy and prepare nutritious food
• missing out on spending time with your kids
• working like you’re “sitting a timed exam for 35 hours a week, 46 weeks of the year” in order to have time to spend with your kids
• wondering whether it’s even responsible to have kids (or a pet) when you don’t have any time for them
• working when you’re not getting paid to work
• feeling guilty for not working more than you’re getting paid to work
• feeling guilty for not working more than the hours you’re working when you’re not getting paid to work
• just getting it done (marking, drafting papers, writing letters of reference, applying for funding), rather than taking time and care over it
• never having time to read current research in your field, except incidentally 
• not having time to take part in scholarly activities in your department (talks, seminars, reading groups…)
• putting off or saying no to opportunities that would benefit you (training, talks, networking, mentorship,,,), because you have to spend your time dealing with urgent matters now
• not having time or energy to socialise
• not having time or energy to contribute to your community (by volunteering, chatting with a neighbour, stopping to support a neighbourhood market…)
• not having time or energy to do the things that make life worthwhile for you (yoga, camping, macrame, flint-knapping, kazoo-playing…)
• having to ignore your body’s signs that you’re overworked (back problems, eye problems, skin problems…)
• never feeling like you’ve done ‘enough’
• not having time to think creatively, which is really at the heart of the academic enterprise
• not having time to support colleagues when they’re struggling

Students and staff alike can feel these pressures, and unreasonable staff workloads contribute to a worse experience for students. UCU members are fighting to address unsustainable workloads not just for themselves, but for the students who will benefit from staff members who are able to keep up with research in their field, to take care over their marking and teaching prep, and to lead fulfilling lives outside of the office. We’re also fighting to help students who want to become staff members, so that universities can attract people who can’t or don’t want their job to take over their life. Remember: our working conditions are your learning conditions!

What do we spend our time doing?

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? Here is a look at one linguist's typical weekly to-do list (with commentary):

I am lucky if I spend one hour a week reading something new.

Emails:  Right now, there are over 100 emails in my inbox that require some sort of action or significant response. I received the oldest of these two years ago (!). The list is ever-growing. On a typical day, 30 new emails needing a response or action will be added. If I spend just 2 minutes on each email on average, it takes an hour of my day just to keep from falling further behind (though many take more than 2 minutes).

Teaching:  This is my light term, so I am only in the classroom teaching 3 hours per week. In my heavy term, it would be 8 hours per week. A lecture I have taught before takes 1-2 hours to prepare; a new one takes about a full working day to prepare.

Student projects:  I need to urgently help students prepare experiments for their projects, else they won't finish in time. I prioritise this over my own research. In the past, I have had up to 12 student projects to supervise at one time (I try to meet with each student an hour every two weeks), though at the moment I have fewer.

Student meetings:  On average, I spend around 6 hours per week in meetings with students (at certain times of year, this will be more like 10-12 hours), including PhD students, students in my modules, students I am supervising, students in the degree programme I run, personal tutees, academic misconduct panels, prospective students, etc. 

PhD supervision: I normally meet my PhD student on a weekly basis. Right now, they are waiting on my feedback on a draft of a thesis chapter. This will take at least a full working day to do properly.

Programme administration:  I am in charge of a degree programme, which carries its own workload. Right now, we are in the midst of the annual review (mandatory for every degree programme). We review survey data (NSS, PTES, etc.), other student feedback, and Faculty priorities, and develop a detailed plan of programme changes for the next year. The process and expectations for the review change each year, so each year's review requires significant work. Throughout the year, each week contains several hours of additional work related to programme administration, though the tasks vary from week to week (admin meetings, emails, open days, talking to prospective students, giving tours, admissions decisions, plagiarism cases, handling extenuating circumstances cases, meeting with students who are struggling, etc.). 

Administrative meetings:  Often at least one admin meeting occurs in a given week, including departmental staff meetings, departmental teaching committee meetings, divisional teaching committee meetings, faculty teaching committee meetings, departmental exam board meetings, divisional exam board meetings, faculty exam board meetings, SSCC meetings, etc. These last between 1 and 2 hours. In many cases, the content of these different meetings largely overlaps, but we are usually expected to attend them all, so we tend to hear the same information many times.

Marking: Between September and May, there is almost always some amount of marking (or second marking) waiting to be done. A standard written assignment will take around 20-25 minutes to mark per student (including giving proper feedback). More in-depth essays take closer to an hour per student. Dissertations take well over an hour per student. Right now, I have only a little marking to do, but at some points in the year, I have 120 essays to mark at a time in the span of a few weeks. Marking 120 essays in three weeks takes up almost my entire workload for those weeks, even if I take no breaks and do zero other work during that time period (which is impossible, of course). Those periods are very stressful.

Mandatory surveys, training, etc.:  We seem to live in an age of endless surveys -- as students surely also feel -- and staff are not immune from this. Usually, the claim is that they take 'only 5 minutes', but it tends to be more like 15. Every part of the university seems to have its own survey now; a couple are sitting in my inbox right now. A few times a year, there is mandatory training that needs to occur. These are almost always important issues, so I understand the need to do them, but they are time-consuming nonetheless.

Recommendation letters:  I need to submit recommendation letters for half a dozen students in the coming few weeks. One of these students notified me less than a week ago, but I will fit them in. One student is applying to 8 universities. A letter takes me about an hour to write, and each application takes about 10 minutes once I already have a letter written (they ask for extra information for each students than just the letter itself). Overall, I write dozens of letters each year.

Reviews:  I have two reviews to do for journals. We get no pay or recognition for these (even though many journals make lots of profit for publishers), but the peer review process is important for the field. It takes me about a full working day to do a decent review. One of these is overdue and the editor has started to pester me about it. What can I put off to get this done?

Grant writing:  The university places high priority on securing external grant funding. I am aiming to submit two grant proposals in the coming year. A grant proposal takes weeks of work to put together. An unsuccessful proposal (the vast majority of them are unsuccessful) gets no credit in our workload, as if the work was not done at all. Only successful ones are acknowledged. I usually only get around to working on these on the weekend.

Research:  I have 8 ongoing research projects at various stages. One of these projects started 7(!) years ago, and I have still not been able to finish it. I am meant to spend 40% of my work time working on research, but I feel lucky to get more than a couple of hours during the work week. Mostly, if I want to have solid time to work on research, I have to spend my evenings and weekends. For academic staff, research (and grant funding) is by far the most important aspect of our work when it comes to professional advancement, but I spend the least time on it because other tasks (students, teaching, administration) end up taking priority.

(Self-)Marketing:  In today's academic world, it is not enough to just output quality research; you are also expected to market yourself (and your research, and the field) to the world. These activities include things like maintaining a personal website, maintaining other profiles (e.g., Google scholar), maintaining social media accounts, contributing to blogs, giving conference and (especially) invited talks around the world, volunteering time to teach summer schools (usually without pay), seeking out media opportunities, contributing to initiatives promoting the field, talking about the field in schools, volunteering for national societies, etc. Most of these things are considered extra-curricular, to be done in our 'spare' time. I do some of these, but find it overwhelming to do others. I am regularly chided by some colleagues for not maintaining an active Twitter account. 

Professional development and learning:  When I was a student, I had the view that academics spent a lot of time reading books and articles, thinking, and using that knowledge to generate new ideas. In practice, I am lucky if I spend one hour a week reading something new. The list of articles I need to read to keep up with the field grows longer and longer. I also want to develop some new technical skills to push aspects of my research forward. If I want to do reading or pick up a new skill, I usually have to spend my evenings and weekends doing it. If my academic discipline were my only hobby and I had no family, then this might be fine, but it isn't my only hobby and I do have a family.

My to-do list only gets longer over time, and I am one of the lucky ones. Many university staff members have it far worse than I do.

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.

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. 

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!

Case study: Outsourcing (IWGB)

We asked strikers to tell us their personal experiences of the themes of the strike. Below, we share the story of one of our colleagues in IWGB, which represents the cleaners, security guards and porters at UCL. You can read about their dispute with UCL management in this post, and by using the tag 'iwgb'. UCU members stand together with our colleagues in IWGB - come to our joint rally today at 10:30 am on Gower Street!

I feel marginalised, disregarded, mistreated and unimportant

Sadly, my experiences of outsourcing at UCL are negative to say the least. I’ve been working at UCL for 5 and a half years and have never received occupational sick pay, no parental leave and receive low pay. I feel marginalised, disregarded, mistreated and unimportant by the management of this university. The fact that they can’t treat me equally with the same rights and respect as directly employed staff (and refuse to truly acknowledge my appalling working conditions) shows just how unworthy they think I am. When I’m late for a few minutes my pay is deducted, however when they have no break relief officers I’m expected to be patient. It has happened on several occasions when I was late for 2 or 3 minutes to work and they deducted from my pay at the end of the month. And it has happened several times when no break relief officer came for my lunch break and I worked a full 12-hour shift without a single break. However, I was told to understand and be patient when I complained! When my wife gave birth in late 2017, I needed to take 2 weeks off to help with the new-born and the time when I most needed money, that’s when I received my lowest pay. I was paid an amount that was really, laughable. £240 for two weeks!! Yet, despite such awful conditions, UCL, which is one of the richest universities around and a global institution continues to happily tolerate this type of treatment, to which I refer as ‘cooperate slavery.’

Why support the strike? A student's view

We asked you to send us your stories of why you support the strike. Below we hear from one student who has seen the cost of their studies increase, while their value decreases. Remember: our working conditions are your learning conditions, so the changes we are fighting for will help students and staff alike.

Secure staff mean secure students

Early last year, in the final stretch of a BA, I came to campus early one morning to be confronted by a picket line across the main doors of my former university. Universities and Colleges Union members from across the country had voted for 14 days of strike action, to protest proposed changes to their pension by an upper management who, they felt, were aiming to shift the burden of pay from employer to employee. 

If this sounds familiar, it’s simply because it is. Fast forward a year and a half. I’m an MA student at UCL now, as well as a paid up member of UCU myself having taken a position at my former university, and there is a grim sense of deja vu about how the last few months have played out. Industrial action has been taking place in UK universities for almost two years now. And the infuriating thing is that in 2018, it worked. In April last year, Universities UK (who represent our universities) agreed to withdraw all the proposed changes, and an indepedent panel review was set up to bring the unions on board and construct a pension scheme which would satisfy all involved. But over the last year, those changes have been chipped away, bit by bit, until the dispute was back where it started. And now there are further concerns on the picket - the racial and gender inequality which has been totally unaddressed, an increasing reliance on fractional and casual work, the insane workloads.

So the question is : why should students care? It’s not our pensions, right? Well, at one point in history, universities were closer in shape to guilds. They were controlled by colleges, bodies of academics - both students and teachers and many who were both - who spent their time sharing knowledge. But that legacy has come perilously close to evaporating. Take my case. I’m a mature student; when I started school University tuition was free. When I first attended further education in 2010, it cost me £3,000 per year. The past four years have cost me £10,000 pounds each. My student debt is almost six figures once maintenance loans are factored in. Clearly, there is a hierarchy established here : as a student, I am less a member of a college now, and much more a consumer of a product. And yet, over these past years, the value of that tuition has plummeted. My previous faculty was a thriving research hub when I arrived. It has now been essentially dismantled, as it was not ‘profitable’. Less than half the staff who used to teach me remain at that university; they have left for greener pastures, for places where they can concentrate on their work rather than defending their existence. And all this has meant a total lack of morale on the part of remaining staff. I voted to strike this year. But anti-strike laws, which in Britain demand that unions reach a very high threshold of voting, have barred my workplace from taking part. People are just tired, fed up of fighting.

From my perspective, this is equal measures baffling and terrifying. On three fronts. Firstly, as a student, where is my money going? Where have they put the tens of thousands of pounds which I handed over? Secondly, as a fledgling academic, why would I want to sign up to a profession which so many seem to be fed up with? I want to work in academia because i love the subject; but if I have no time for the subject, then what is the point? And as an employee, why in hell would I want to sign up if my employers will refuse to see any value in my presence, and in fact will actively lie to meabout any kind of deeper engagement with my wellbeing?

This is why students should support the strike. Because our attendance is being slowly siphoned away from knowledge-sharing. Because the pensions and pay disputes are not distant unconcerning things. They are symptomatic of a wider lack of care in ‘the academy’ as to the value of its actual role (i.e., education and research). Our money is trickling more and more into obtuse procedural management; into shiny coffee tables and ‘open plan student mess rooms’; in short, it seems to be going into advertising. Universities in the United Kingdom are investing in politics and advertising at the cost of the product they exist to produce. They claim to address inequality and unfair pay, but do nothing of substance to address it. They are becoming far more minded with attracting profit than in producing the learning, the debate, the insight which made them world famous in the past. And at the end of the day, that means that not only are universities aiming to shift the burden of cost onto staff - they are aiming to shift it onto students as well. 

There’s only one day left of this industrial action. If you can, join the picket. But beyond this week : email the provost one more time, talk to fellow students about how these things affect us in a very direct way. Secure staff mean secure students.

The university we want to work at

One thing we've been struck by over the last week is just how much fun we're having on the picket line. Sure, it's cold and wet. Yes, it's difficult when students (and occasionally staff) walk by without acknowledging us. But for the last week we have experienced the kind of university we want to work at.

We've spent our week engaging with students one-on-one, hearing about their personal experiences, their interests, their plans for the future. We've had hours to chat with colleagues about something other than how stressed and busy we all are. We've taught at our Strike School, not because we have to but because we're genuinely passionate about our research and we enjoy sharing that passion with others. What's more, we haven't had to worry about the endless admin that's now associated with teaching - taking registers on behalf of the UKBA, preparing assessments over a year in advance, worrying about how our teaching evaluations will affect future job applications... We've been listening to colleagues give talks on subjects that they're equally passionate about, and listening to our students discuss these topics intelligently and with genuine academic curiosity. We've forged new bonds with colleagues and students across the university, and experienced true collegiality, support and solidarity with the whole academic community.

This is why we decided to go into academia! So thank you all for helping to create this unique space, this vision of what universities should be, if only for these eight days. With your support, we're hoping to turn the tides of commercialisation in academia. Keep supporting the strike, keep emailing the Provost, and help make real progress in our fight for change.

Students and staff enjoy Lily Kahn's talk on the Linguistic Landscape of Greenlandic

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!

What I would be doing if I weren't striking

This is the first 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 list of what I haven't done feels longer

Having gone to bed last night at some point after 1 am (I was up late drafting a new paper), I'm up at 7 to start a new day. I glance through the newspaper headlines on my phone, jump in the shower and then sit down to some breakfast and emails. I spend a lot of my time dealing with emails. Today I have questions from students, a request for a letter of reference, agendas for meetings I have to attend, a new assignment to mark, and a whole lot of irrelevant junk. I deal with what I can and leave the rest for later - I have to glance through my lecture one more time before I'm out the door at 8:15.

I teach from 9 am until 11 am. I'm tired and my brain feels a bit slow, but I hope I get my point across. Some students look happy with the material, but others look decidedly confused - a pretty standard lecture! Afterwards, I spend about 15 minutes answering questions before running off to my first meeting of the day.

A student feels they are struggling in my class, and has asked to meet with me. I'm always happy to receive these requests - I love my subject area, and enjoy helping other people appreciate it too. We chat a bit about how the student is feeling and work through some problems together. At the end of the meeting, I think we've cleared up some issues, but I always feel like I could have helped more.

It's 12:15 and I check my emails again - more questions, more meetings, more junk. I fire off a couple of answers and then run to my next meeting.

A colleague from another department wants to hear about my experience collecting data, and is asking for my advice. I don't feel qualified to give anyone advice about anything! I am very much a sufferer of imposter syndrome. We have a nice chat and a cup of coffee, but I'm again left feeling like I could have helped more than I did.

At 2 pm I have a meeting with members of the department. I had been hoping to get some lunch before this meeting but ran out of time. With stomach grumbling, I listen to updates on UCL bureaucracy and the department's attempts to do good work despite it. Some updates are promising, but most will inevitably lead to more work: more boxes to check, more meetings to attend, and less time for research and teaching.

Late for my next meeting at 3, I rush back to my office and open up Skype. I'm meeting with a colleague in another department about a paper we're working on together. Unfortunately, neither of us has had much time to look at the data, and our deadline is coming up. We update each other briefly on what we've read, what we've written, and what we intend to write before the next time we meet, and we reassure each other that if we put in a few extra hours over the weekend we'll be in a better position next week. Then they have to go for their own departmental meeting.

It's 4 pm and time for lunch. I eat while going over my emails. I try to delete what I don't need, but am still left with over 30 that need answering. For about an hour and a half, I answer these, and do some Moodle admin (updating lecture slides, posting a new assignment, answering a few questions...). I know I've made progress, but these kinds of tasks feel never-ending. At 5:30 I decide to head home, but end up chatting with a colleague and generally putting off heading out into the cold and dark.

I'm home by 7 and am faced with a dilemma: do I get a start on my marking, or do I try to make some progress on the paper I'm working on? I decide that I don't quite feel up to the marking, so I read over what my colleague and I have written so far, and heat up some leftovers for dinner. (Note to self: need groceries!) After a while, it's clear I'm not going to make any more progress tonight, so I check back to my email. This was a mistake: I find more emails to answer, but don't have the energy to do so. Around 9 I decide to call it a day (well, maybe one more email...), and spend the rest of the evening on Netflix and the Guardian feeling like I should be working.

Objectively, I know I've been busy all day, and I know that I've done a lot. But the list of what I haven't done feels longer: marking, prepping my next class, finishing the article that's been sitting in my drafts folder for weeks, cleaning my bathroom, answering that text from an old friend... I constantly feel like the tide of 'to-do's is on the verge of sweeping me out to sea, and it's only by swimming as hard as I can against it that I'm able to stay within sight of the shore.

Right now it doesn't feel like things are going to get a lot better. That's one of the reasons I'm striking: these workloads are unsustainable, and they are going to push dedicated, able people like me away from working at a university. I can only hope that universities listen to their staff, and do what they can to allow us to work more effectively and more healthily.

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.