University staff plan strike action for 31 October

Get a day off though.

How is going and standing on a picket line in the rain and the cold a "day off"?

Sounds to me like you don't actually know that much about workplaces and trade unions

Says the guy who thinks every single person taking the day off is doing that.

Who's taking the day off? There was a strike action, but I think you're struggling a bit and seem to be confused about what industrial action is.

For the record, every single member of staff who took strike action in my department joined the picket line. So please, let's hear some more misconceptions of yours.

By the way, have you ever had a real job?

Who pays the pensions of clerical and manual staff?

I think it shows total disrespect for their paying students tbh. At the end of the day, our fees fund their salaries, so I can see why they think if we're paying more, they should be earning more, but that doesn't mean they should take it out on us.

Ridiculous.


Also, Sir David Bell KCB is getting roughly 250k? That's a really good salary! I met him the other day

So what happens to the £9000 each student puts into the university every year? Who gets it? The universities' research pocket? The professors who teach us? Or some rainy day fund?! It's unbelievable that it's coming to this!

The people who really need it are the staff we don't often think about, cleaners and the like, but this strike was in support of them too.

I agree, but most uni's contract in their cleaning companies so it is unlikely that they would even be considered as part of any pay settlement. When you hear leacturer's and teachers gripping about their pay & conditions then compare it to the likes of pay & conditions for cleaners and the like you think what do they have to complain about. After all there's no shortage of educated people in this country anymore. Makes me mad when you see cleaners stooping over in the corridor picking up litter and being so poorly paid for it, can't be nice.

I don't work in cleaning, but I've not had a pay increase for three years where I work and now the minimum wage is not far from what I get paid, so I don't even get 1%. No doubt bankers are back to nice fat pay rises that caused a lot of this mess but those at the bottom of the pay scale are having to have seemingly endless pay freeze to pay for the bankers incompetence and practically fraudulent activities.

Trouble is, the Tories spin doctors make all strikers out to be greedy, be it teachers, firefighters, university workers, nurses blah blah blah, and it seems to seep and stick into the minds of students for some reason. Well I'll be interested to see how passionate you become about your own industry and its pay situation once you start working full time and realise how hard you work and how many of your hours are taken up by work.

Airport workers have been trying to strike at Christmas since Blair, and Royal Mail workers strike every year. This is not a new thing and it's all their own doing. Airport workers can strike when they're not trying to ruin thousands of people's family time, and Royal Mail workers can strike when they stop stealing stuff and actually deliver an acceptable amount of mail in an acceptable manner. Or, more seriously, when Royal Mail stop allowing such mindblowing unprofessionalism.

So? I didn't say it mattered when anyone strikes, the point is people strike when they're not happy - which they're entitled to do whenever they like. The beauty of a democracy.

Also saying that everyone in the Royal Mail are thieves just proves how ignorant you are. Let me guess, everyone on benefits is a scrounger too, right? Open your eyes and put down The Sun.

Half-read what I wrote, then pretend I wrote something else. Mature.

What you wrote is irrelevant to what I said