Thoughts on striking, and non striking, senior staff. Those on the #UCUstrike pickets - physical and digital - I see you and I thank you. Heads of School, Professors, leaders of education and research. I hope that the strength of this action emboldens you, as it does me...1/

...to speak truth to power - in Senate, on committees, in learned societies, in research groups and funding councils. We are not powerless to change things if we persist and fight. Those who are not on pickets - whether striking or not -please hear us and use your voice for us 2/

If you think this is about quibbles about your pay and your pension-it really really isn’t.What has happened to our pay levels and our pension scheme is symptomatic of a culture in HE leadership that treats staff & students as expendable units, not flesh and blood human beings3/

Please listen to stories about casualisation - if you’re at Leeds, start with @CasualsLeeds and @UCUAnti_Cas . I heard those stories on the pickets in 2018 and was appalled (and then started doing casework - oh boy....) 4/

Listen to what workload is doing to people. Maybe yours is fine, maybe it isn’t, but people are sinking even if you are not. It’s not inevitable. It needs to change, urgently, and that change needs to come from the top. 5/

And listen to how all these problems intersect with gender, race, disability, migrancy. If we don’t fix this we wil never fix our pay and opportunity gaps. Never. 6/

It’s not like it was. Yes, I was paid a pitiful amount to teach as a PGR, but I had 3 ys secure, only 1 yr hourly paid. Yes, I started on a 2 yr fixed term which made me vulnerable when Politics Happened - but it was full time, 24 months, and I got a permanent job after 2 yrs.7/

Yes, I overworked & was bullied & burned out & got ill-& got better. My solution was to dial back on ambition(and that shouldn’t have been necessary)but I was able to do that without worrying about my next years income. It’s way worse than it ever was and its not getting better8/

Some of the things that need to change are sector wide, structural and profound. We are always told we have to be ambitious, to scale up, to be exceptional - well we want ambitious, exceptional change and that means the whole institution needs to be on board. 9/

Some change can happen locally, but only if senior staff - decision makers-understand what the problems are: that if a job needs to be done, the person needs a secure contract to do it properly; that workload planning needs slack in the system to allow for humans to be human. 10/

That time doesn’t magically appear when something is important; that work and worry are making us ill and are also stopping us,our universities and our sector from fulfilling our potential.The sector risks declining to a shadow of its former self& too many people can’t see it 11/

Younger staff - ECRS , PGRs, hourly paid staff can see it, which is why they are taking risks with their pay and security to be on the picket. Please, senior staff, listen to them, support them and stand with them. #UCUStrikesBack