It is not unreasonable to expect a rise in line with the cost of living - or is it?
K
Kevin Malone
12 years ago
With respect to all the excellent work being undertaken in other areas of HE, this one -- the most important area -- is being neglected. Staff on the shop floor delivering teaching, research and administration every day of the week (including weekends) are being seen as a mere resource to be squeezed, not rewarded for making successes actually happen. Our appeal for an effective pay increase is genuine, like the work we are expected to carry out under increasingly pressurised conditions.
M
Mr Glyn Ireland
12 years ago
The government is holding down pay awards for all but those who can hurt them,
C
Christopher Drew
12 years ago
The wonderful staff of this university deserve a fair pay deal now.
J
Jennifer Mort
12 years ago
Why should the people who work the hardest and provide the result be the ones to be penalised? This is blatantly unfair.
P
Philip Seddon
12 years ago
Disgusted fed-up and angry, get the impression the Uni seems to feel that buildings and ipads are all the students need over good staff and lecturers, i cant understand how an institution can strive to be the best when you do not treat the people who do the work in a concurrent fashion!!!!!????..........
A
Ammar
12 years ago
I'm a student and in principle I wholeheartedly agree with the content of this petition and think the university should adhere to all these requests. Furthermore I think it's outrageous for the top to raise their own wages by a significant amount but expect the rest of the staff to accept an increase that is effectively a pay cut with inflation. However, I must express disgust at the obvious emotional blackmailing of lecturers to get students to support the petition or suffer the delay of marks being returned. It's furthermore outrageous that Universities who charge exorbitant amounts to both home and International students to firstly allow such an action to take place without quickly moving to resolve this dispute after staff first protested and then escalated to a marking boycott. Any "benefit" of a strike (aka wages that go unpaid because of strikes) should either be refunded directly to students for a missed lecture/seminar/lab or as suggested go directly into a student fund rather than the University benefitting off of it.
J
jonathan howie
12 years ago
It's appalling that the university is not protecting it's lecturers against the difficulty of living by paying a fair wage against inflation. It's equally shocking the student response of 'I'm paying for it so they should provide it' towards the lecturers. Please pay fair for the colleagues of the future to have a just motivation in entering this discussion.
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Michael Smith
12 years ago
This may be, to paraphrase, "just your 10p" but I'd conjecture it was worth considerably less.
The comparison with your experience in a call centre is irrelevant. It does not take a minimum of 6 years education and training (more often than not considerably more, when one take into account post-docs etc.) to work in an outsourced call centre. Moreover, at the end of the working day few call-centre staff take their work with them. University staff are, in my experience, available to their students at all times. They undertake many hours in extra-curricular and enrichment activities to the benefit of their students, for which they are essentially unpaid.
This petition is not purposed to 'emotionally blackmail' students (as you and others here have unimaginatively insisted) into supporting a strike so that marking may resume. It barely even requires you to see beyond your own self-interest in support of your mentors, and particularly early-career academics trying to achieve a living wage. The petition asks that the wealth of the university be distributed more evenly (not even on a flat egalitarian basis). The likes of Dame Nancy have received an 8% pay increase, which must be understood in relation to a real-terms pay-cut for lecturing staff. This is hardly representative of their respective workload or contribution.
If you wish to talk self-interest, then let's do so. Ever decreasing remuneration is turning many talented scholars away from academia. This, in an industry which is already changing with decreased job security and tenure. If we are to attract the best and brightest minds, the University of Manchester must recompense them appropriately. Your education will surely suffer in an institution which looks to reward administrative and ceremonial employees at the expense of teaching staff.
However, I would principally seek to appeal to your sense of solidarity with the academic and lecturing staff. You chagrin is directed at the wrong t
YES
YES
YES
YES
YES
Please support us, Dame Nancy.
It is not unreasonable to expect a rise in line with the cost of living - or is it?
With respect to all the excellent work being undertaken in other areas of HE, this one -- the most important area -- is being neglected. Staff on the shop floor delivering teaching, research and administration every day of the week (including weekends) are being seen as a mere resource to be squeezed, not rewarded for making successes actually happen. Our appeal for an effective pay increase is genuine, like the work we are expected to carry out under increasingly pressurised conditions.
The government is holding down pay awards for all but those who can hurt them,
The wonderful staff of this university deserve a fair pay deal now.
Why should the people who work the hardest and provide the result be the ones to be penalised? This is blatantly unfair.
Disgusted fed-up and angry, get the impression the Uni seems to feel that buildings and ipads are all the students need over good staff and lecturers, i cant understand how an institution can strive to be the best when you do not treat the people who do the work in a concurrent fashion!!!!!????..........
I'm a student and in principle I wholeheartedly agree with the content of this petition and think the university should adhere to all these requests. Furthermore I think it's outrageous for the top to raise their own wages by a significant amount but expect the rest of the staff to accept an increase that is effectively a pay cut with inflation. However, I must express disgust at the obvious emotional blackmailing of lecturers to get students to support the petition or suffer the delay of marks being returned. It's furthermore outrageous that Universities who charge exorbitant amounts to both home and International students to firstly allow such an action to take place without quickly moving to resolve this dispute after staff first protested and then escalated to a marking boycott. Any "benefit" of a strike (aka wages that go unpaid because of strikes) should either be refunded directly to students for a missed lecture/seminar/lab or as suggested go directly into a student fund rather than the University benefitting off of it.
It's appalling that the university is not protecting it's lecturers against the difficulty of living by paying a fair wage against inflation. It's equally shocking the student response of 'I'm paying for it so they should provide it' towards the lecturers. Please pay fair for the colleagues of the future to have a just motivation in entering this discussion.
This may be, to paraphrase, "just your 10p" but I'd conjecture it was worth considerably less. The comparison with your experience in a call centre is irrelevant. It does not take a minimum of 6 years education and training (more often than not considerably more, when one take into account post-docs etc.) to work in an outsourced call centre. Moreover, at the end of the working day few call-centre staff take their work with them. University staff are, in my experience, available to their students at all times. They undertake many hours in extra-curricular and enrichment activities to the benefit of their students, for which they are essentially unpaid. This petition is not purposed to 'emotionally blackmail' students (as you and others here have unimaginatively insisted) into supporting a strike so that marking may resume. It barely even requires you to see beyond your own self-interest in support of your mentors, and particularly early-career academics trying to achieve a living wage. The petition asks that the wealth of the university be distributed more evenly (not even on a flat egalitarian basis). The likes of Dame Nancy have received an 8% pay increase, which must be understood in relation to a real-terms pay-cut for lecturing staff. This is hardly representative of their respective workload or contribution. If you wish to talk self-interest, then let's do so. Ever decreasing remuneration is turning many talented scholars away from academia. This, in an industry which is already changing with decreased job security and tenure. If we are to attract the best and brightest minds, the University of Manchester must recompense them appropriately. Your education will surely suffer in an institution which looks to reward administrative and ceremonial employees at the expense of teaching staff. However, I would principally seek to appeal to your sense of solidarity with the academic and lecturing staff. You chagrin is directed at the wrong t