Today is #UCUStrikesBack anti-casualisation day. My last dept was heavily dependent on casual labour (as hourly paid tutors or part-time teaching fellows) because the staff-student ratio was what can only be described as abysmal. Casual staff were paid reasonably well for student

contact hours, but not paid for preparation, and pay rates for marking was scandalously low (something which was raised year after year to no avail). Training and support was almost non-existent, primarily because no-one had time to do it, and anyway people weren't paid for

attending trading. If casual staff complained, the knee-jerk reaction was just to get rid of them, sometimes in a seriously dodgy manner. So casualisation is bad - for those employed on casual contracts, for students and for permanent staff for whom all this acts as a powerful

discipline. People ask why I left that employer. It's because it was an awful place to work. My new employer is, so far, a billion times better. But I'm still striking cos pay and pensions are sector-wide matters, & cos I'd hate to see it go the same way on workload and precarity