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Personally I would ask the why the project investigators asked for such a low salary in their ESRC application. There is no room for negotiation once a grant budget has been awarded. It is easy to lay the blame on 'the man' for low salaries but it is the moral duty of investigators to ask for a fair wage for research staff in any grant application. Under the new salary scheme there are minimum thresholds for staff with certain experience and qualifications and these should be a fair guide to what can be asked for. Research councils, in my experience, do not turn down applications on the basis of asking for a reasonable and justified wage for project staff. S Ant Ince wrote: > ... and in the current climate of casualisation and precaritisation (is > that a real word??) of pretty much everyone who isn't a senior lecturer, > why would new PhD graduates go for a job paying such a small amount of > money? in just under three years time, i'd genuinely be tempted to go > for this job if it came up. so WHY? > > of course it's all about research funding and blablablah, but if we're > going by market laws of supply and demand, there should be a hell of a > lot fewer people doing PhDs than there are. > > i'm sure it's not the only reason, but Maurice Brinton in his essay 'The > Irrational in Politics' gives us a clue: "[capitalist] ideologies aim at > denying to individuals the autonomous (i.e. the conscious and > self-managing) exercise of their own activities. They aim at depriving > people of freedom and responsibility in a fundamental realm and at > obliging them to conform to externally imposed norms and the pressures > of 'public opinion' rather than to criteria determined by each person > accroding to his [sic] needs and experience." > > young academics (like myself) are so timid due to our junior position in > the massive, grotesque academic hierarchy that we forget about the fact > that we're actually very highly skilled and therefore worth more than we > get offered. but because we're only offered a certain amount, just like > other public sector 'vocational' workers, we're naturalised into > thinking that that is what we should expect because we're doing it as a > vocation. we've been imbued with the idea that people who do a job for > the love of it don't need as much money as those who hate their jobs > (which is the majority i would expect). money for people who hate their > jobs can act as a substitute for fulfilment, and for people like > academics who have jobs they love, fulfilment can act as a substitute > for economic wealth. in other words, money is a scale of moral worth, as > well as a measure of economic value. but these two scales operate in > opposite directions and when the two intermingle these mixed signals are > an excellent way of confusing us into submission. in my view anyway. > > yes we are vocational workers, yes we are highly-skilled but where does > that leave the human? capital needs academics to reproduce capital, but > we need capital to challenge capital... now deconstruction is great, but > what about the concrete and the everyday? what is our 'place' as both > representatives and opponents of the big 'C'? > > ant > > > David McKnight wrote: >> why are research assistants paid so atrociously? i mean 14k for someone >> with a PhD is just bonkers >> >> David >> >>> Please reply to Richard Phillips: >>> >>> [log in to unmask] >>> >>> >>> >>> UNIVERSITY OF LIVERPOOL >>> >>> DEPARTMENT OF GEOGRAPHY >>> >>> RESEARCH ASSISTANT: ANTI-WAR MOVEMENTS >>> >>> A Research Assistant is required to work on an ESRC-funded research >>> project on anti-war movements in the UK. The project involves making >>> contact with and conducting interviews with specific groups of anti-war >>> activists in London, Liverpool and Scotland. >>> >>> The successful candidate is likely to hold a PhD or be a doctoral >>> student >>> in a relevant field of the social sciences or humanities, based or >>> able to >>> work in either London or Liverpool. This post is for a period of up >>> to six >>> months full time, but this post is flexible and it would be possible to >>> spread the work over a longer period on a part time basis. The start >>> date >>> is also negotiable, but might be around January 1, 2007. >>> >>> Salary based on annual range of £14,184 to £16,658 (pro rata) >>> depending on >>> experience and qualifications. >>> >>> Please contact Dr Richard Phillips for more information or to apply for >>> this post, by November 10, at: >>> Department of Geography >>> University of Liverpool >>> Liverpool L69 7ZT >>> [log in to unmask] >>> >>> > -- Steven Cummins MSc PhD MRC Fellow Department of Geography Queen Mary, University of London Mile End Road London E1 4NS T: 44 020 7882 7653 F: 44 020 8981 6276 E: [log in to unmask] W: http://www.geog.qmul.ac.uk/staff/cummins.html