INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY: striking for equality

Strathclyde UCU women picket one of the shiny vanity buildings 

As we celebrate International Women's Day, education workers in 74 universities are striking on what they call Four Fights, which includes the demand for an end to a massive average 15% gender pay gap across Higher Education.

I discussed the significance of this action with ROISIN McGOLDRICK, UCU member and regular picket at Strathclyde University.  
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You will be striking around International Women's Day. What do you feel about that? 

I think it's really important for women to participate in industrial action. Especially this year, when Strathclyde university organised a series of events over the whole week.  

They knew when they were doing this that we would be on strike. 

It seems hypocritical of them to organise events about women's confidence, self-esteem and social progression when there is a 19.8% gender pay gap in Strathclyde University.  

What's been the union's response? 

We've tried to raise awareness at every event, that what people are hearing from the platform is sugar coating on a very bitter pill in the 21st century. 

Bosses have declared it a 'socially progressive University'?? 

What issues have you particularly raised awareness of?

The pay gap - which doesn't just affect gender, but also our Black and Minority Ethnic colleagues, and colleagues with disabilities. 

One of the biggest issues for me is precarious contracts. 

The university benefits hugely from the goodwill of staff both on permanent contracts and those who aspire to be on a permanent contract and thus give many, many more hours than they are paid for, with absolutely no job security. 

To the outside world, it looks like University staff are really quite well paid. But if you take that top line and look at hours and hours of work beyond the nominal 35 hours that most people do, that very generous pay starts to look somewhat meagre. 

Could you elaborate on examples and causes of the gender pay gap?

The university promotions structure looks as if it's very systematic and with lots of criteria. 

But it's unique, in that people put themselves forward for promotion. 

It's not that you get promotion because you are doing a job that carries more responsibility. 

And we know that women tend to take on more responsibility and support colleagues, and are less likely to seek rewards for things they would see as simple collegiality. 

It's the system where you have to put yourself forward and that comes from a place "I did", "I led" and so on, that's the pronoun - whereas women tend to see it as "We", as teamwork and doing things in tandem with colleagues.  

There are big contradictions. I work in a department - Social Work and Social Policy -  where we have five women professors, all of whom have been on the picket line at some point. 

Their male counterparts in Social Policy are not participating in this action, despite researching inequality, health policy and social justice. 

Why do you think that's happening?

Partly the career structures at universities. These men have an eye on what's next and wouldn't want to impact on their career prospects. They may have more sophisticated explanations, but I think that's at the heart of it. 

It's a very archaic system of promotions, designed by men, for men. 

For example, the graduation for Humanities and Social Sciences, with 85% of graduates being women. The graduation address talked about engineering, buildings, successful entrepreneurship and business partnerships. 

Despite the fact the vast majority of these young graduates were going to work in public services, education and social work - that is, to educate the engineers and others, and contribute to the wellbeing of the entrepreneurs - their contribution was overlooked, ignored. 

The balance of that has changed slightly in the last two years, because of the volume of protest from the academics. 

Striking for her future 

How does this fight against the gender pay gap tie in with the broader strike, involving both male and female trade unionists? 

Usually when people go on strike it's for one reason. UCU have taken the bold step of combining four issues. 

It's not all about pay, or pensions, but about our overall working conditions.  

And students can see that our working conditions are their learning conditions, which has become their mantra. 

If they have staff who are well rested, well rewarded, well engaged, they'll get a better deal, including pastoral care of students. 

How is the strike going?

It's evident from conversations that people who are not on the picket line are anxious, some embarrassed, some genuinely afraid if being on the pickets will lose jobs or mean they'll be discriminated against. 

Our intention is to show that solidarity with their colleagues gives them the strength to resist such bullying and intimidation. 

It's a really hard thing to do, to take strike action, with significant consequences.

The blatant unfairness of the current position means I won't stand by and say that's OK, because it's not OK.

We are in it to win it!