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What do people think of the Lecturers' industrial action?

Do you think Lecturers industrial action is justified?  

79 members have voted

  1. 1. Do you think Lecturers industrial action is justified?

    • Yes
      39
    • No
      40


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My view on this strike/action is that you shouldn't get paid for work you didn't do. If you choose not to work in order to make a protest then you shouldn't think that you will get paid for that time.

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My view on this strike/action is that you shouldn't get paid for work you didn't do. If you choose not to work in order to make a protest then you shouldn't think that you will get paid for that time.

 

As with many of your posts, this is overly simplistic. The work has been done or is being done and therefore there will be no 'loss of production', to use an industrial term.

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My view on this strike/action is that you shouldn't get paid for work you didn't do. If you choose not to work in order to make a protest then you shouldn't think that you will get paid for that time.

 

They didn't stop working - they just stopped marking students' work. There is still plenty of work to do and lecturers were all still in work doing it. The action short of a strike was never going to result in the students work not being marked - just a delay. In fact, most did mark the work because they foresaw the situation that has now arisen. The award boards are due to be held next week and now the action has been called off they would have had to mark hundreds of exam papers within a few days. What actually happened is that most marked the work but have not submitted the marks, which is what they are now going to do and the students actually won't have been affected.

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As with many of your posts, this is overly simplistic. The work has been done or is being done and therefore there will be no 'loss of production', to use an industrial term.

 

If they did everything theye were supposed to, then what was all the fuss about? I haven't followed it closely, if at all, but I assumed they were taking some kind of industrial action, possibly even strikes. If you take action then this usually implies missing some tasks you would otherwise have carried out.

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If they did everything theye were supposed to, then what was all the fuss about? I haven't followed it closely, if at all, but I assumed they were taking some kind of industrial action, possibly even strikes. If you take action then this usually implies missing some tasks you would otherwise have carried out.

 

Well, lets offer a simple analogy. Say a lathe operator producing widgets decides to take industrial action. Instead of downing tools, he continues to produce widgets but hoards them instead of handing them over (or works extra to produce the exact number of widgets required by the time the customer needs them). There is no loss of production and the customers get what they want. Students around the country will graduate as normal this summer thanks to the sterling efforts of lecturers in ensuring that there is no lacuna in academic widgets due to the industrial action.

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If lecturers' pay is to be docked for not marking, then they shouldn't mark at all. Let the VCs find someone else to do the job we're not getting paid for while we take a holiday!

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Well, lets offer a simple analogy. Say a lathe operator producing widgets decides to take industrial action. Instead of downing tools, he continues to produce widgets but hoards them instead of handing them over (or works extra to produce the exact number of widgets required by the time the customer needs them). There is no loss of production and the customers get what they want. Students around the country will graduate as normal this summer thanks to the sterling efforts of lecturers in ensuring that there is no lacuna in academic widgets due to the industrial action.

 

A nice analogy LordChav but alas, it's your turn to be guilty of being over simplistic. Your analogy holds true for those AUT members who adopted the "mark and park" approach, which admittedly many did (incidentally often under pressure from the unions not to do so, as happened to union members in my department). However, a fair percentage of AUT members followed the ASOS to the letter and refused to undergo any assessment activities whatsoever. This has meant, in the past fortnight in particular, extra workload for either non-union members or union members prepared to break the strike to see the students graduate. To follow your analogy, in some cases the lathe operator has in fact refused to make the widgets and others have had to step in to make his quota too. It is these individuals that are under threat of having their pay docked.

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