Below is a copy of an email I sent to the University and College Union (UCU) with regard to the strike action, principally over pay, held on 31st October 2013.<\/p>\n
This is posted temporarily as a response to several tweets about the pay of academics (or at least those working on climate change) that I received on 25th November 2013.<\/p>\n
*************<\/p>\n
As a union member I will be taking part in the strike, but wish to emphasise that from a financial perspective it is the distributional issues that are important and not that all academics etc. are inadequately rewarded. Personally, I consider that professors and other senior members of staff are more than adequately remunerated – and actually some are overpaid by a considerable margin. At the same time many of my colleagues who are on short-term research contracts remain financially undervalued and with very uncertain job security, as indeed are many support staff, from P.A.s to technicians and cleaners. I would very strongly favour action that recognised and\u00a0sought to address such distributional unfairness, and certainly I would support an absolute pay ceiling for anyone working within the university system.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n Universities\u00a0should be about working as a collegiate team, not based on a failed model of top-down\u00a0hierarchy. In 2013 I really think it is time the Union at least recognised the skewed incentive structure of our university system and began a programme of\u00a0engagement\u00a0with\u00a0its members,\u00a0University\u00a0management\u00a0and the\u00a0Government\u00a0to instigate meaningful change. Universities are supposed to be at the forefront of contemporary thought \u2013 so as systems-thinking is now percolating many courses, surely it is time the Union began pushing to replace the reductionist framing of value (elites overseeing research & teaching fodder) with a more collaborative and dynamic engagement of teams of valued individuals. This is action I could both intellectually and socially support; in the meantime I will abide by the Union\u2019s call for a strike on Thursday \u2013 but will be doing so with some reluctance.<\/em><\/p>\n Below is a copy of an email I sent to the University and College Union (UCU) with regard to the strike action, principally over pay, held on 31st October 2013. This is posted temporarily as a response to several tweets about the pay of academics (or at least those working on climate change) that I received on 25th November 2013. ************* As a union member I will be taking part in the strike, but wish to emphasise that from a financial perspective it is the distributional issues that are important and not that all academics etc. are inadequately rewarded. Personally,\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_s2mail":"yes"},"categories":[43],"tags":[],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":5}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/kevinanderson.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1177"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/kevinanderson.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/kevinanderson.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kevinanderson.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kevinanderson.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1177"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/kevinanderson.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1177\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1182,"href":"http:\/\/kevinanderson.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1177\/revisions\/1182"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/kevinanderson.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kevinanderson.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kevinanderson.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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