Back in the 1970s my late father would make a point of crossing the picket line when his colleagues were on strike. He, and his friend Bill Whitehead, would march past the other liberal arts teachers with pride. After the event, my father would note how unusual it was to see so many of his co-workers in the Warwick University English department actualy turning up on campus. Dad would have been proud to see the Mrs breaking the strike this week although as she was working from home that day it only meant answering emails. According to the bright young thing of socialism, Zarah Sultana MP, it is as University staff have suffered a 20% pay cut so she backs the strike. As so often Zarah makes things up. My father was the sort of lefty who believed that Government should look after the deserving poor and that folks should speak the truth. He would not have been a big fan of Ms Sultana on either count.
Zarah claims that since 2010 university staff have suffered a 20% pay cut. Of course they have not. Their pay has gone up. What Zarah means is that the across the board pay increases since 2010, usually 1% a year, have lagged average wage increases by 20%. 2010 is an interesting place to start because in 2008-10 after the great financial crash lecturers still got raises, priviate sector folk saw pay fall in actuial terms and many got P45s. After 2010 there was a catch up by the private sector. If Zarah had used 2008 as her starting point she’d have arrived at a different result.
But there is a bigger factor. What Zarah refers to is the across the board pay rise given irrespective of performance to folks in a job where however bad you are you cannot get fired unless you commit a heineous offence like shagging one of your students, expressing support for Brexit or suggesting that women cannot have penises. As with most public sector jobs there are grades within each post and moving up a grade which happens really very frequently sees you get a bumper pay rise. During the years 2010 to 2021 most university staff will have gone up a couple of grades and that makes abig difference to the sums.
Then there is promotion. A junior lecturer, on average, earns c£40,000 a year. A senior lecturer has to struggle by on £52,000 while a Professor is on £90,000 which buys you an awful lot of copies of the latest book by Owen Jones. There are thousands of promotions across the UK’s system of Marxist Madressas each year and these lead to bumper pay rises. As such Ms Sultana’s assertion is just a complete fabrication.
Right now, lecturers also get a gold plated pension largely paid for by you and me, the grateful taxpayer. Almost nobody in the private sector can hope to get anything on good and its value is worth at least 15% again on basic pay. The Government has suggested the scheme needs to be made marginally less generous as it is totally unfunded and that, as well as pay, is what the lecturers went on strike about.
Pity the poor students who have had their past two yeats at the Madrassas ruined by the lockdown laws of the scamdemic. Even now the lecturers union is the most militant in calling for additional restrictions and less face to face teaching to make the university experiece even more miserable and more of a £9,000 a year rip off. Now they withdraw their valuable teaching services altogether as they demand more cash. Pity the students.
And pity the lavatory cleaners and other low paid workets. In days gone by real socialists did. But Ms Sultana and her ilk do not. To fund even bigger pay rises and to maintain the gold plated pensions, low paid workers will have to make do on less disposable income either as a result of increased tax/NI or as government money printing fuels inflation, the thief in the night. Or both.
Zara Sultana MP wants the lavatory cleaners to have less so that folks on £90,000 plus gold plated pension can have even more. Which part of Marx is she quoting to justify that?
