Dear all,
Having just come from a mildly successful but very wet meeting
about university sector pay and working conditions I remain
unconvinced that many academics of all political persuasions have
much if anything to say. And if we have nothing to say why should
anybody - let alone the government or our VC's - care to listen?
Other professions have been successful in placing their claims
because they have been able to manipulate public sympathies
(nurses and teachers) or can successfully hold government's to
ransom (doctors) but it would appear that we are able to do neither.
Whether this is about public perceptions of academia or because
of government minister's own university experiences I am not sure.
It may of course be because of our own experiences and
unwillingness to push the salary issue too hard. It is difficult to
argue from the vantage point of a salary in the mid-£30ks (which
even a modestly successful academic in a new university could
achieve) especially if we don't want our working lives to be overly
rationalised and routinised.
The main issue for me (and this is based on my own experiences)
is the starting salaries and working conditions imposed upon new
members of staff. I'm not sure that we should be overly concerned
by institutional differences in pay and more in arguing for a bare
minimum package which is acceptable across the board.
Tim Brown
Tim Brown
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Dr Tim Brown
University of Portsmouth
School of Social and Historical Studies/
Institute for the Geography of Health
Milldam
Burnaby Road
Portsmouth
PO1 3AS
Phone (023) 92842799
e-mail [log in to unmask]
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