I’m sure Mike won’t mind me forwarding this important post

Greetings comrades. Enjoy the strike.  I’m glad to see academics taking action against neoliberalisation and austerity today - this is more than just about pay, as you all know. It’s about the sort of universities participatory geographers committed to co-production would like to see.

Pete

From: A forum for critical and radical geographers [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Mike Kesby
Sent: 23 January 2014 10:31
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Online, on-street discussion about UCU Industrial action

Colleagues

Apologies to beyond-the-UK readers.

I propose a small CGF discussion about the ongoing UCU industrial action. There is much that critical geographers can offer to the analysis of this social phenomenon. I will be engaging in some local discussion about this today at 11:00-13:00 with colleagues from my own and other departments on a picket line outside the main university admin building. We will be discussing the impacts of the neo-liberal academy, the value or collective action and the importance of resisting injustice close to home as well as abroad in the world. We will perhaps discuss the importance of senior and established colleagues supporting a struggle that has greatest consequence for junior and younger colleagues, and whether defeat in the current action is more or less likely to facilitate the neo-liberalisation of the academy. We will discuss whether it is appropriate that the model of growing disparities in pay between chief executives and their staff is appropriate in the university sector, or whether intellectuals ought to be pioneering alternative models of remuneration.

Debate may also turn to the merits of the new two-hour strike strategy. We will debate whether it represents an effective escalation in the face of the employers’ intransigence and whether it will make UCU colleagues feel more able to support the action. It is my hope that it will, particularly in institutions were only two hours’ worth of pay is to be deducted, and particularly among colleagues who are reticent to disrupt the learning of students directly. We will use the two hours to discuss what strategies might most effectively put pressure on the employers and which might ensure the continued support of the majority of students.  

I hope this posting will instigate some interesting debate on CGF – but also perhaps some on picket lines across the country – where I hope critical geographers will be particularly in evidence.

Yours in solidarity

Mike Kesby

Senior Lecturer – University of St Andrews.