“Tough choices”…

It has been a long time since I have been able to find the energy to engage in writing for the pleasure and release it brings me. I am not sure there will be anyone left following my blog site – I understand how easy it is to lose social media followers if there is nothing to offer them. A lesson for ego perhaps of the insignificance of seeking ‘friends’ and ‘followers’ and how easy it is to be forgotten amongst other voices. My experiences have levelled my expectations of self – in life all that holds true meaning, and therefore absolute dedication, is love, trust and relationships with close family and true friends. We are transient in the world, and our place in it socially constructed. Many of us seek connection with others – and that connection gives us a sense of our place in the world, and how we are valued…or not. The last few years, and especially the last months, have made me question my value and how that is ‘measured’ by others. It is these thoughts that have been worrying at my brain.

Perhaps I will be speaking into the abyss, but today the squiggly thoughts in my head have overcome my body’s tiredness to write…albeit in small bursts.

In a previous post here in November 2021, I revealed that I had caught COVID whilst at work. In that blog I was still in the throws of COVID, hoping that I emerged from the infection unscathed. Sadly and frustratingly that wasn’t the case and I have “Post COVID syndrome” (long COVID). As numbers of COVID cases increase rapidly at this time, and I am contacted daily by those who have succumbed, I feel my vulnerability to re-infection rise too. When students I teach face-to-face contact me to say they will not be attending my session, I cannot help but count back to the day I last saw them. When I walk around my workplace, or get into a lift I cannot help but feel vulnerable when people come into close proximity without a face covering. I am the odd one out, and they cannot be blamed as there are no longer any rules in place to protect each other from COVID. This revelation isn’t to seek sympathy or even understanding for my current condition there are many people who have far worse health concerns than I, but hopefully sets the scene for my reflections here.

I recently saw a number of tweets about a meeting with the Education committee on Universities and Higher Education. As is my habit with anything from social media I sought the full transcript of the meeting in order to shape my own opinion. What struck me was the ‘white lies’ that were put forward by some – and I mean that in both a standard and CRT way. Words can be used in such clever ways to put forward a picture that belies the truth through experience from those on the ground. Structural Racism lives large in many Universities. In my experience in Education, action for real change often falls to those on the coal-face and they are asked to give their time voluntarily in their already unsustainable workload. Projects are designed to measure for accounting purposes, often using the free labour of those it suggests are oppressed. Buzz words and strap-lines fill the air…and everything must fit in with these or be discarded – all that counts is what can be counted. Pleas for resources to do the work are met with the response that times are hard, and there is not the budget – whilst money can be found for new signage, or bright shiny new buildings, or spent in ways that show-off to the world the success, in order to hide the stale air inside.

The other thing that sang loud from the transcript of that meeting was that staff are seen as a mere resource: all ‘Gris for the mill’ and something to be used as a source of profit (or in the view of some University Leaders, loss) in what has become the business of Education. I always remember an early meeting with a new VC where they expressed the need to cut costs, followed quickly by the statement that the budget for staffing was alarmingly high. The message was that the future would bring tough choices and difficult decisions – and it wasn’t too far in the future that that hint became reality. I have watched as staff have left what has become a rather toxic HE environment, some taking voluntary severance in a bid for fresher cleaner air. Others not so lucky have been pushed out in different ways. Those that left were often not replaced, their work expected to be absorbed by those people left behind.

In my more cynical moments I have wondered if this is part of some big plan. The number of new initiatives that have been forced on staff on top of their workload as they emerged from the battles faced during lockdown have knocked people for six. Face to face teaching was the expectation. A whole new management structure was rushed in – with staff able to apply for new leadership opportunities for no extra pay and no real description of roles and responsibilities. I have watched as these new leaders, already with unmanageable workloads, became tired and depressed at the numerous extra responsibilities, many expressing how they felt they had no time to do anything well. What followed was chaos with people not really understanding who did what in this new world. New ways of working take time to embed, yet there was no time to breathe in-between the onslaught of demands from students who had also faced the trials of a lockdown life, and those above who expected business as usual.

COVID still rampaged, claiming people who had no energy to fight it. The new leaders were encouraged to make an application for a higher pay grade – with no guarantee that they would be successful. And still the new strategies fell upon each member of staff…with impossible deadlines to meet. Staff became too despondent, too tired to resist. Day-to-day, people sometimes with tears expressed the impact of the new ways of working as affecting their mental and physical health, but often this was declared not to those with power, but to the powerless colleagues they now led. Overwork and the sweet carrot of leadership with the additional responsibility to meet the organisation’s agendas (or not be awarded a grade-rise), was perhaps an effective strategy to break people and any dissent, even if that was not the intention. Biko’s words below came to mind:

On Monday 28th March – the UCU have called for further strike action on the Four Fights, the second round of direct action in 2022. I knew as soon as it was announced that I would take part, despite the fact another 5 days loss of earnings was something my household, with mine the only income, could not afford. I have heard colleagues state they cannot afford to strike. As always I say I can’t afford not to strike. If I truly believe in the social justice agenda that I teach, how can I ignore the inequalities in HE? The headline for the strike ‘We are at breaking point’ has never been more true for staff in HE than it is now. I look back at my time working in this sector and can say it has had a significant detrimental effect on my physical and mental health. The time has come for that to stop. Staff are not resources to be used until they break, and then a cheaper replacement can be found. I look around at the colleagues who used to stand on the picket-line, who raised their voices for equality, who are now broken and perhaps fearful that unless they prove their worth they will be cast aside. I cannot mop up anymore tears or lend a listening ear to colleagues who say they are broken, yet still take more and more work, and work longer and longer hours, because I am broken too.

I hear people declare they feel guilty if they strike because it will harm students. I strike for students, because what I am able to give them shrinks every week – they deserve more than I can give when I am exhausted and more than I am allowed to give in a workload which is unsustainable. I am truly broken.

There comes a time to say enough is enough and throw off the chains that bind you, even though it comes at a cost. I think that time is now before it is too late. We deserve so much more.

N.B. This is my truth, it may not be yours. It is a prompt for deeper reflection so that you can find your own truth and act by it.