Since DH got me posting in this board (on the Wifes thread), I thought I'd chime in here with a perspective from the other side.
I just started as a Lecturer in September. I don't pretend to know enough about the issues involved to make a determination about the appropriateness of the strike; I just got here! I'd gotten some brochures from the Union a while ago, and was thinking about investigating what it meant to be part of it, to see if I wanted to join. Now, I think waiting for a while may be the best thing....
The first I heard about the strike was getting a mysterious email from the University telling me that if I was planning to go on strike, I should tell my HR manager so they could deduct 1/365 of my salary. What I do know is gleaned from hearsay and a single article I read in the school newspaper. However, in the article they mentioned that one of the issues was that faculty salary had dropped 40% relative to cost of living over the last two decades. This struck me as definitely having a point. I knew that getting a position in the UK would mean a lower salary for me, and the differential between the salaries I was looking at in the US and UK
was about 40% (i.e., 40% higher in the US).
And there is probably also the issue, at least for the sciences, of being competitive with industry. A friend who just got her PhD last year is now working for industry and is making over twice what I make, when I have 4 years postdoctoral experience. I expect that I could make 3 to 4 times my current salary if I worked in industry. I'm obviously not in it for the money, otherwise I'd be in industry right now, but I always keep in the back of my mind that if things get too tight (or really, stay as tight...remember, DH is in school!) I can always leave academics and get a better paying job elsewhere.
As difficult a job it is to be a teacher, I think they have it easier than most teachers in public schools.
And just to comment on this: First, I definitely think that teaching in public schools is hard, and at least in the US (I have no knowledge about the UK on this), teachers are underpaid, overworked, and underappreciated. I know I wouldn't want to try handling the job.
But... a University Lecturer does a whole lot more than teaching. Even at mainly teaching institutions (at least in the US, where I have knowledge) there is a triumvirate: Teaching, Service, and Research, where you are supposed to spend 1/3 of your time on each. And this is opposed to larger universities, where teaching may be considerably less of your time.
In my first year, I'm doing barely any teaching (3 hours this semester, which for the seminar style class I have requires very little preparation, leading to only about 7hrs total of teaching effort on my part for the whole semester). But I work 50-60 hrs a week (DH can testify that I was in tears just earlier this week about having too much to do and simply not enough stamina to work longer). And if you're wondering what it
is that I do in all this time, its: doing research, writing grants to get money to do research, telling others about the research I've done by writing papers and giving talks, plus a bunch of meetings and committees and stuff (and writing grants, writing grants, writing grants, or at least that's what it feels like in this first year).
In all, I just hope this strike gets sorted out soon. Mostly I'd just like to see it end so that no-one has to face having degrees held up; and personally, that my DH doesn't have his Masters held up and have to deal with how to continue onto the PhD program without it. And selfishly, I'd love it if it ended with some more money for Lecturers, and this somehow filtered its way up to Scotland, so I could be not so broke anymore
