I nearly left academia completely a few years ago. It’s not the pay—though I am incensed that so many academics take on so much debt, start their careers years later than their peers, and spend so much time in training to wind up with precarious contracts and below-poverty-level pay. If you are fortunate enough to land a permanent gig, the pay is liveable (though not for much longer, if we don’t get the employers to keep up with inflation).
No, the reason I nearly left is because of the workload creep. The burnout. The existential exhaustion that comes from being a teacher, a researcher, a therapist, a colleague, a manager, an administrator, a coach, a cheerleader, and a punching bag. What is a university without its staff, to generate and share knowledge? The neoliberal university is a degree mill, the staff merely factory workers on an assembly line. We see our role as important, noble, intensely stimulating and necessary for the benefit of a fruitful society; they see us as expenses they’d like to minimise.
It’s really hard to care about your job—your research, your students, your colleagues, even your institution—when the institution sees you as cannon fodder. We compartmentalise, and start doing things we care about on our “own time”, like research and writing and networking. Before you know it, your relationships have diminished, you no longer have hobbies, and sometimes you no longer have your health. The institution is more than happy to have your outputs for their REF submissions, of course, benefiting from the sacrifices you’ve given them for free.
As a result, they’ve stolen your work, not paying you for your time and efforts, and still blaming you if any metrics fall short in your area. The treadmill speeds up, and you fall off, and they’ll only grab some new graduate to take your place and leave you to languish where you fell.
This is why I’m striking. I am worth more than the current HE system believes. I take care of students, both their minds and their needs. I do amazing, interesting research, contributing in so many ways to culture and knowledge and society. I help my colleagues, and I raise the reputation of this institution. It’s time the institution treats me as a person, a human, an investment, rather than an expense to minimise and diminish.
Join us this week as we show the university what we’re worth:
Tweet/post your support for the #UCURising campaign
Join our virtual lunchtime rally on Friday 17 Mar, 1-2pm (see email “Changes to BU UCU pickets…”)
Join our pickets:
Mon 20 Mar 8-10am meet Poole Gateway
Tues 21 Mar 8-10am meet Bournemouth Gateway
Wed 22 Mar 8-10am meet Executive Business Centre
Update your email signature to reflect your support for the #UCURising campaign:
Please note that I am currently taking action short of a strike (ASOS) as part of University and College Union (UCU) industrial action to defend our right to fair and decent working conditions, including fair and equal pay, a decasualised workforce, and manageable workloads. Response times may be slower for the duration of the dispute as I will be working to contract.
Please support university staff by writing to the Vice Chancellor John Vinney, jevinney@bournemouth.ac.uk, asking them to listen to staff concerns and to use their influence to advocate for fair pay and working conditions for BU staff.
