Category: Uncategorized

Monday 9th March

Rally for International Women’s Day (IWD)

South Entrance Picket, 10.30am. All other pickets will pack up around 10. There will be short speeches and we’ll be filming a short video to highlight our feminist strike. Please bring ideas/make signs in response to ‘This IWD I’m calling on the UoN to…” [equal pay/an end to casualisation/fair pensions] etc.

Teachout: Casualisation and the University

Join the University of Nottingham Anti-Casualisation campaign group for an open discussion on how outsourcing and precarious working conditions are affecting many of us across campus, and how we can organise to fight against it!

1 – 3 pm. Dunkirk Community Centre, Montpelier Road NG7 2JW

Tuesday 10th March

Poetry Reading: Peter Gizzi, Sarah Hayden, and Alan Baker

Acclaimed US poet Peter Gizzi reads his latest work, alongside two poets based in Nottinghamshire, Sarah Hayden and Alan Baker.

7pm, Five Leaves Bookshop, 14a Long Row W, NG1 2DH

Event is free for striking UCU members. Otherwise £4/£2 students. Admission includes refreshments.

Wednesday 11th March

Teachout: ‘Black Holes and Extra Dimensions’ Antonio Padilla, School of Physics
and Astronomy

10am, South Entrance Picket

Thursday 12th March

Teachout: ‘Don’t follow your passion! Creative work, self-exploitation, and dangerous myths’ Leora Hadas, School of Cultures, Languages and Area Studies

10am, North Entrance Picket

Friday 13th March

POSTPONED! RALLY AT JUBILEE Derby Rd Picket, 11am

Bring your noisemakers and placards! A march will start from West Picket, picking up other pickets on our way to Jubilee. Estimated timings:

10.00 West Picket; South Picket 10.20; North Picket 10.40; arriving Jubilee Derby Road 11.00

Today’s entry comes from Lila Matsumoto, Equalities Officer

Instead of taking my usual roadside route to the university, I decide this morning to cycle along the canal path. It’s before 7am and the path is not yet busy with walkers and cyclists. Instead I see coots, moorhens, mallards, swans, and pigeons partaking their morning ablutions. The light is beautiful on the water. I think of a poem by Denise Riley : ‘A cloud rose on the horizon of the morning/ with a plume like the breath of a whale at sea’.

A strike is not a holiday, but it is a pause from work. And in this pause I find my mind, freed from the relentless deluge of administrative emails and forms, becoming more expansive in its receptivity to the world. Standing on the picket line has given me new familiarity with the weather system outside of my office, and to animal life too: the herons that pass overhead South picket on their way to the boating lake, the dogwalker leading her gaggle of yapping miniature dogs at 8am. I am tuning in to the things that are happening every day, outside of the narrow margins and preoccupations of my workplace.

As other members have spoken about in their blog entries, a great perk of the picket line is meeting and speaking to people you would not have otherwise met, cloistered as we are in our departmental halls and buildings. Today I met members from Pharmacy, Maths, Psychology, and Art History (I am in English). We talked about, among other things, feelings of fragmentation and social isolation within schools and departments, as a result of exponentially increasing workloads and doing away of communal social spaces and events. Against this trend, the picket line, teach-outs and events organised during the strike are experimental spaces of learning and socialising meaningfully with our colleagues.

The sun is out today, and I am happy to be in it, rather than just as a glimpse from my office window. Standing in the sun with my colleagues gives me pause to understand the extent to which we have acclimatised, at the expense of our well-being, to the unsustainable demands and conditions of our workplace. It has created a sense of myopia about our labour – perhaps even a solipsistic sense of its utter importance – disconnecting it from other forms of engaging with the world.

Today’s strike diary comes from Matt Green, UoN UCU Branch President

The week is off to a good start. Not only have we heard updates on new talks, not only has social media again been aflame with determined strikers, but also we’ve arrived at the point in the year when traveling to the picket line can take place in daylight hours. The day dawned frosty but bright as I stepped out the front door en route to visit our Sutton Bonington picket line.

For those who haven’t been out that way, the picket line at SB is a heartening experience. The picketers are a welcoming bunch. Their good will and cheer is accompanied by resolution and they have a way of cutting to the heart of what’s at stake in the current dispute.

Conversation began with one longstanding picketer explaining what he saw as the heart of the four fights dispute. In short, he said that in five years time he wants to be able to offer congratulations rather than commiserations to new entrants to academia. His story, of concern for PhD students seeking to enter the profession of course resonates across disciplines. Such are the obstacles on the way to an open-ended contract, and the challenges facing new entrants to the profession, that it is becoming increasingly difficult to encourage students to pursue dreams of an University career.

Talk then turned to pensions, with picketers expressing concerns over new staff effectively being priced out of the USS by the relentless increases in contribution ratings, a state of play that harms us all.

Overall, though, despite the challenges we are facing, the prospect of further talks this week and solid showings on the picket lines give much cause for optimism. We find ourselves at a turning point for Higher Education and while the risks are daunting, success will see genuine change for the better across the sector.

Monday 2nd March

Crafts for Pickets: Come and learn crocheting, finger knitting, and needle felting to make a variety of crafts for the picket line (intimidating bunting!) and/or for relaxation. No experience is necessary and a variety of materials will be provided.

Talk: ‘Brexit and Citizen Rights’ Narine Ghazaryan, School of Law (talk will begin at 2pm)

1 – 3 pm. Dunkirk Community Centre, Montpelier Road NG7 2JW

Tuesday 3rd March

Talk: ‘The power of statistics: how to spot fake news’ Rosie Smith, School of Education

Talk: ‘Well-being and resilience at work’ Neil Chadborne, School of Medicine

1 -3 pm. Middle Street Resource Centre, 74 Middle Street, Beeston NG9 2AR

Wednesday 4th March

Free yoga: For all stages including beginners. Bring your own yoga mat/there will be 12 provided by the instructor. Class size limit: 20, so first come first served. The session will last 45 minutes.

1 – 2pm, Middle Street Resource Centre, 74 Middle Street, Beeston NG9 2AR

And in the evening…

STRIKE SOCIAL!
Music, dancing, and drinks. With special guest UCU secretary Jo Grady. Free, everyone welcome!

7.30pm – late. Vat and Fiddle, 12 Queensbridge Rd, NG2 1NB

Thursday 5th March

Workshop: ‘The Changing Face of Community Education in the East Midlands: Implications for Adult and Higher Education’ Colin Kirkwood, Rob Hunter, Lorinda
Liversidge, John Holford, Linden West

This workshop, organised with Workers’ Educational Association (WEA – East Midlands Region), provides an opportunity to reflect on what our communities need, and what kinds of response is required from the education system – especially from universities, colleges and adult education organisations such as the WEA. Please click on link above for more information.

2 – 4.30pm, Nottingham Mechanics (Lounge), 3 North Sherwood Street, NG1 4EZ

Today’s entry comes from Dr Joseph Baxter, Learning Applications Developer and UoN UCU APM Officer

Today was a nice sunny walk to Kings Meadow Campus, walking past the queues already forming on the Clifton bridge.

Met Adam our lead picket in the cold shade of the industrial estate on Lenton lane (we have lovely view of a storage company facing away from the campus gates). We had 8 members on the picket line today which is reflective of the strong presence we have had each day of the strike.

On the picket line we have a mix of Information Services and Libraries staff as our core picketers. Our numbers are boosted by visiting academic staff who I assume come to enjoy the view I mentioned before. [Ed. Note: It’s the craic Joe, definitely the craic]

Talk as usual ends up with Campus Solutions and the incoming outsourcing of Information Services. As you can imagine no one on the picket line can understand how you can have such a bad experience with an outsourcing company and still think it is a good idea. Please come along to the picket line next week if you want to hear a full rant but I best leave it there for now.

We usually only see a handful of students at KMC unless an exam is on (yes, the “temporary” exam location of KMC is still in use) so we are mostly talking to our colleagues on the picket line. The staff outsourced previously (still based at KMC) who walk in are friendly and often offer to get us a nice warm cuppa.

At KMC foot traffic tends to stop around 10 o’clock so we pack up at 10:30 today, lots more union work to be done though…

After popping home for some lunch and doing some UCU branch committee work it is back to Dunkirk for the teach-out event hosted by the Student housing co-op.

An interesting talk on the history of student housing co-ops around the world and an update on Nottingham student housing co-op.

They have several ideas on how UCU and academics could help which I hope to discuss at a future branch meeting:

• should/could our UCU branch invest in Nottingham Student Housing Co-op?
• should our UCU branch promote to members to invest / become members of the Nottingham Student Housing Co-opshould our UCU branch ask national UCU to support the Student Housing Co-operative?
• can academics promote to students?
• can academics provide access to networks that the housing co-operative do not have access to?
• can UCU help get us on the university’s agenda?
• can academics who research in relevant fields engage on the educational level?

Why would we want to do any of these things?

• The housing co-operative wants to support UCU student members
• The average student housing co-operator is more likely to engage and support UCU

After the meeting it is back home to write this diary update, help process the local strike fund applications, design the strike social leaflet, create some more why we strike posts for twitter.

… and have a cup of tea.