Academics on the picket line tell LFF why they're on strike

Academics and supportive students seemed in good spirits on the picket line outside a university in South East London on Wednesday. However, their situation is far from joyful as they continue an ongoing struggle, asking university bosses to hear their plea for better pay and conditions.  

University lecturers are back on strike as part of an ongoing national campaign. This marks the final week in their current strike mandate, with ballots taking place into October to determine whether further industrial action will happen next year.

Speaking to LFF on the picket line today, lecturers shared their experience of deteriorating working conditions, with financial and work stress rendering the current system unsustainable.  

UCU branch co-chair and a lecturer at the University of Greenwich, Ruth Ballardie, shared with us the struggles of being an academic (and student) today.

“We’ve had a 25% pay cut in real terms over the last ten years, and then on top of that, we’ve had the cost of living crisis and inflation. So just over the last two years, we’ve lost a further 10% of our pay,” said Ruth.

With wages too low to pay the rising cost of rent in London, some of her colleagues have been forced to move further out of the area or rely on borrowing money from family and friends to pay current rents.

Rents in the local area increasing by 20% in 18 months, leading Ruth herself to live in a shared house which is cheaper.

“The idea that academics are living in an ivory tower and they’re well-paid, is a myth. We’ve got some lecturers going to food banks,” said Ruth.

“Sure, there are professors who get a reasonable wage, but the university system depends on a large number of fairly low-paid staff for it to exist.”

Adding to this, Ruth said where she works is one of the lowest-paid universities in the sector, which she said has left it struggling to hire good quality staff.

“Other universities get £5,500 for the London weighting; we’re on £3,500. So there’s this massive discrepancy between what we’re earning and what we require to live.”

‘Workloads are horrendous’

Despite being contracted for 35 hours-a-week, staff are finding themselves doing 10 hours extra just to get everything done.

“You cannot do this job unless you are willing to put in 40 to 50 hours a week or more,” said Ruth.

“That’s more than a day of free labour for the university just to keep that going. They’re constantly pushing us to do more.”

Whilst conditions inside the classroom have also changed drastically in recent years. When I was at university five years ago I’d expect no more than 15 students in my seminars. Now, it’s apparently upwards of 40, as one student described it to me as being ‘stuffed into a classroom’.

“I can no longer teach,” said Ruth, “I do crowd control. You cannot give the support that they need to 45 students in a tutorial, even doing group work.”

Many students themselves are working full-time, whilst studying full-time and experiencing rent troubles themselves whilst receiving minimum levels of support.

‘They don’t listen to us; they don’t listen to the union’

For Ruth, she saw conditions drastically start to shift in the last 12 months. However, concerns raised by lecturers to management went ignored, as the university leadership pushed for more control over staff.

“Anybody who steps up into a higher level, like a program lead, is told to toe the line, keep your mouth shut. It’s very disciplined, very authoritarian, and very managerial,” said Ruth.

“Academics are very angry about this lack of involvement in decision-making, as if we’re little widgets to be moved around like pawns and not valuing our expertise, knowledge of what is happening on the ground with teaching.”

Casualisation in academia is a key element in the dispute around working conditions, with the increasing move to hire non-permanent staff also raising concerns around gender and race pay inequality.

“The most fruitful and fair way of fixing the gender pay gap would be to employ the casuals permanently. As a lot of the lower-paid workers in universities are women,” said Ruth.

“What has the university done, they’ve cherry-picking positions in the senior leadership team and replace them with women, so they’re absorbed into the elite system.”

Strikes have been taking place at 140 universities across the UK as lecturers are saying enough is enough, and that the current conditions are no longer sustainable, both for the workers and students in higher education.

Student solidarity – ‘Why aren’t they supporting their staff? It just doesn’t make sense to me.’

Stevie Babistock, a second-year politics and international student said he was on the picket line with his lecturers because he recognised that they weren’t just striking for themselves, “but for us and our future”.

“They’re not asking for much”, said Stevie. “They’re just asking for above-inflation wages and secure contracts. I was shocked to hear that most of them are on zero-hour contracts, and it’s something that most people aren’t even aware of.”

He added: “We are paying a lot of money to be here. £9,500 plus a year, the money is there. I don’t understand why they aren’t supporting their staff. It just doesn’t make sense to me.”

Hannah Davenport is news reporter at Left Foot Forward, focusing on trade unions and environmental issues

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