From 25 Nov-4 Dec @UCU is striking over pay inequalities, casualisation, unmanageable workloads and attacks on our pension scheme. I will not respond to work-related messages during this time.

I am exhausted and burned out. It's vital we fight for a better vision of the academy.

Like many university lecturers, researchers, and support staff, I frequently work evenings and at weekends as it is impossible to stay on top of an academic workload within our contracted hours. I have been working on precarious contracts for 9 years now, constant uncertainty.

I am currently on my second temporary researcher contract, with a third lined up for another few months. Until 2017 I was doing "hourly-paid" teaching, sometimes effectively making less than minimum wage, with no access to rights such as paid sick leave. This is normal.

While students spend thousands of pounds on an education, managers earn hundreds of thousands, spend millions are spent #shinybuildings, universities are propped up by an army of low-paid precarious staff with no job security and few if any rights as workers. This must not go on.

Women, people of colour, LGBTIQ+ people etc are disproportionately represented within the pool of casual labour on which our institutions rely. Increased casualization only exacerbates conditions in which those who are already the most privileged are most likely to thrive.

If you are a UCU member and/or a student in an affected university, please join us on the picket lines.

If you work in a different university, please speak out in support and don't ask us to work.

We can win this fight together and build a better university.

#UCUStrikesBack

To my colleagues - please also recognise that not everyone can be on physical picket lines for all kinds of reasons related to accessibility and personal circumstance. Our digital pickets matter too!

And moreover, some of our most precarious colleagues are unable to strike.

In 2013 I was fired from a teaching job for participating in industrial action - I was technically hired through a wholly-owned subsidiary of the university, with no right to strike.

We need to respect the circumstances of our casualised colleagues. I strike because they cannot.

All this strike talk can be a bit depressing - so get in the mood for some serious industrial action with this absolute gem from the @leedsucu picket lines last year, led by local hero @zenscara. #UCUstrikesback #UCUstrikes

C'mon!

...and if you're in the Leeds area on Friday 29th, support @leedsucu strikers by coming along to our solidarity hardship fundraiser at the Chemic! https://twitter.com/NotRightRuth/status/1198625647368835073