So here we are again, roughly a year since my last Substack, which was also about the industrial action in UK Higher Education. This is itself shows that little progress has been made - in fact far from achieving what we were asking for, things have mostly got markedly worse. Academic pay, already stagnating for well over decade, took a real terms hammering over the last year, just like most other workers, especially in the public sector. The pensions situation has got theoretically better, since the inflation that has eroded our salaries has paradoxically dramatically improved the financial position of our pension fund, the USS. But so far there is no clear commitment from our employers to reverse the cuts in future pensions entitlements they cynically forced through, exploiting the financial chaos of the early stages of the Covid pandemic. And I have yet to see any big changes in gender equality or precarious employment (although I guess I might be less likely to notice).
Exit, voice and the university
Exit, voice and the university
Exit, voice and the university
So here we are again, roughly a year since my last Substack, which was also about the industrial action in UK Higher Education. This is itself shows that little progress has been made - in fact far from achieving what we were asking for, things have mostly got markedly worse. Academic pay, already stagnating for well over decade, took a real terms hammering over the last year, just like most other workers, especially in the public sector. The pensions situation has got theoretically better, since the inflation that has eroded our salaries has paradoxically dramatically improved the financial position of our pension fund, the USS. But so far there is no clear commitment from our employers to reverse the cuts in future pensions entitlements they cynically forced through, exploiting the financial chaos of the early stages of the Covid pandemic. And I have yet to see any big changes in gender equality or precarious employment (although I guess I might be less likely to notice).