Down with that sort of thing

[nmg]

While buying a round of tea in the Students' Union this lunchtime, I noticed that the chap standing next to me was wearing a t-shirt which read:

Students Against Lecture Strike Action - salsa.susu.org

This makes no sense on a number of counts:

• There is no "Lecture Strike Action", because teaching is proceeding as usual.
• If they're referring to people with teaching duties, they should be aware that these are called "lecturers". As an aside, if the students can't distinguish between "lecturers" and "lectures", we're doing something seriously wrong.
• This industrial action is not limited to lecturers, but to all members of AUT and NATFHE, a group which includes research and academic-related staff: librarians, administrative staff, system support staff, and so on
• The strike action (meaning complete withdrawal of labour) was limited to a single day in March. They're complaining about what AUT/NATFHE distinguishes as "action short of a strike".

The URI doesn't point at anything in particular, redirecting to the SU homepage.

Being a mild-mannered academic, I of course said nothing.

Comments

[zihuatenejo.livejournal.com]

Except that nurses and consultants aren't on a single pay spine that they all need to agree to. So it's hardly nonsense to criticise them for submitting an early pay claim and starting action when they knew the employers couldn't meet. The only other conclusion is that they wanted the employers to break the single pay spine and give the lecturer's unions more than everyone else; that seems rather like screwing over your collegues.