I think myself lucky to have a permanent job & earn a comfortable wage. Many people in academia are constantly searching for the next contract, living on tiny wages, working multiple jobs to get by. We have no future jobs to offer our PhD students but we are massively overworked.

We aren’t just striking because of the threat to pensions (when am I going to retire?!) or pay. It’s because our sector is broken, and our universities won’t listen to their staff when we tell them how broken we are too.