The main union representing academics in the UK is “in dispute with university employers at the moment”:http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/01/world/europe/01cnd-britain.html?hp&ex=1149220800&en=a1097c439ced02b9&ei=5094&partner=homepage, a dispute that is getting nastier all the time. Academics are refusing to assess students’ work, leading to the worry that many of them will be unable to get classified degrees this summer, and universities are now threatening to withhold a proportion of salaries (30 per cent in my institutions, up to 100 per cent in some other) as a penalty for partial breach of contract. I’m supporting the action as a loyal union member, but also because there is something right about the union case. However, as an egalitarian liberal, I can’t feel other that unhappy about some of the arguments put for higher academic salaries.
So what’s right about the union case. Basically this, I think: that the British government recently introduced top-up fees for students and one of the key arguments advanced by ministers (and by vice-chancellors) in order to get the legislation through the House of Commons, was that the money was needed in order to pay academics more. With the legislation duly passed, there ought to be money for pay increased if the arguments were put in good faith. But, surprise surprise, the universities still say they can’t afford to salary increases better than a measly 13.1 per cent over three years. In the past few years many vice-chancellors have received pay increases much greater than this (often around the 30 per cent mark). The employers have also refused to negotiate at all until matters reached crisis point (despite being pressed to so since last October) and have generally acted in a “bullying”:http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/news/story/0,,1788282,00.html and “dishonest”:http://www.personneltoday.com/Articles/2006/05/25/35509/Ucea+apologises+for+misrepresenting+MPs+in+lecturers%E2%80%99+pay.htm manner. So the government and the university employers certainly deserve to lose, to be punished for their bad faith.
At the same time, I’m unhappy with the argument that academics deserve more, and the argument that we have “fallen behind” comparable groups over the past twenty years. I’ve heard numbers of people remark on the fact that academics can no longer afford to buy property in the more salubrious middle-class parts of town. But there seems to me no good basis, and certainly no basis in justice, for the thought that academics should be paid similar salaries to doctors, lawyers, architects and the like in order to place them sufficiently towards the front of the queue for positional goods like houses in desirable areas. And looked at in comparison to the rest of the population — rather than the privileged groups they like to compare themselves with — academics are doing pretty well.
I’ve heard two other arguments advanced. First, some people have suggested to me that the length of training involved in becoming an academic gives rise to an expectation of higher pay. But I’m not buying: anyone entering postgraduate education since about 1981 has known what to expect: a less than certain prospect of a job, and a modest salary. Second, some people have said to me that we need higher salaries so that good people choose to become academics rather than lawyers or … stockbrokers. The trouble with this is that it provides a good case to raising academic pay in those subjects where there’s a rival market (law, economics, engineering) and a much weaker one across the board. I don’t get the impression that the quality of applicants for jobs in my own subject is weaker than it was twenty years ago (though others may disagree).
Still, I do feel bad about my skepticism. I now earn a better salary than my younger colleagues in the humanities do, I have a partner who earns at a similar level (so our household income is pretty ok), I’m a member of one of the best pension schemes in the country, and I’ve now been on the property ladder for 21 years. So though I’m comfortable, I feel considerable discomfort in telling others who earn less than me that their feelings of comparative injustice are misconceived. I know that a good number of UK political philosophers — AUT UCU members like me — read CT, so I’d be interested to know whether they think I’m barking up the wrong tree here.
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Rob 06.02.06 at 4:50 pm
“The trouble with this is that it provides a good case to raising academic pay in those subjects where there’s a rival market (law, economics, engineering) and a much weaker one across the board.”
I’m not sure about this. Although one of the things pushing me back towards a doctorate in political theory is my relative failure in the job market, there were people doing the theory MPhil with me who were definitely going into non-academic stuff like law and that kind of thing, who seemed to be relatively confident about their prospects. That probably was partly because they didn’t really fancy academia of itself, but the money involved – particularly the total lack of it whilst being a grad student – must have been a factor. I think you have to realise that, at least in the UK and in the arts, your chances of getting funding are slim, and that means supporting yourself for at least four years to get a doctorate, as well as paying fees. That’s a big debt to be carrying around. I suppose the points I’m trying to make is that academia does – more or less across the board – compete against other professions, and that the argument about the length of training has a good deal of weight.
Bondwoman 06.02.06 at 5:42 pm
I think the strongest arguments are for uplift at the bottom of the scale. Single academics are in an impossible position starting out, frankly, and it will have a severe impact upon the quality of people entering the profession over the years if we do nothing now. I’ve argued that the unmentioned unmentionable is the role of the RAE in encouraging VCs to keep money back for promotions and salary uplift on an ad personam basis this year.
dsquared 06.02.06 at 7:17 pm
I’ve always thought that there is a lot to be gained by separating arguments about what any job deserves from arguments about what people want and that the second class of arguments is equally legitimate to the first. Almost nobody deserves what they get, and the only large-scale experiment with giving people what they deserve didn’t work very well. The facts as I see them is that the academics have a reasonably good union and thus will end up getting about half to two-thirds of what they were originally promised. This isn’t as good as what they ought to get (and thus the next higher education reform bill will have to do without the votes that the lecturers’ lobby provided) but it’s still pretty good so hurray for the unions I say. In general, the having of a good union ought to be considered an equally legitimate source of wealth as having lucky parents or having happened into a ludicrously overpaid job like stockbroking.
Guest 06.03.06 at 12:35 am
” Second, some people have said to me that we need higher salaries so that good people choose to become academics rather than lawyers or … stockbrokers. The trouble with this is that it provides a good case to raising academic pay in those subjects where there’s a rival market (law, economics, engineering) and a much weaker one across the board. I don’t get the impression that the quality of applicants for jobs in my own subject is weaker than it was twenty years ago (though others may disagree).”
Two comments:
1/ I studied mathematics and philosophy and have a DPhil and am now a stockbroker.
2/ I don’t see why there is “trouble” in the argument if that means professors in certain subjects get paid less. The argument is coherent. There is only trouble if one has other certain pre-disposed views (everyone should be getting a pay increase) which conflict. Different pay scales for engineering professors and law-school professors in the US are a fact of life.
Oh yes, and don’t forget about counterparty risk with pension schemes. If a scheme becomes unaffordable, benefits will be cut, no matter what promises have been made.
etat 06.03.06 at 3:22 am
Barking, Chris, defintitely barking. The simple explanation is that your situation is not that of others. There many people whose situations are far less comfortable than yours, and whose prospects do nothing to lend a sense of security in even the short term.
I could also argue against you on a logical basis, but there’s no need for that. Perhaps you’ll convince yourself after more reflection.
I am hoping the strikers hold out until there’s a significant shake-up of the pay system, since it’s not currently realistic to think there’ll be a change in the working conditions.
shwe 06.03.06 at 3:31 am
I also share your sense of discomfort about the arguments that suggest that academics ought to be able to command comparable remuneration to other professionals in society. (and doctors– I know a few–complain that they are underpaid in comparison to their peers in the city) In the first place it ignores the fact that there are major inequalities in income distribution within several of these comparable professionals that I’m not sure it would be desirable to see replicated in academia.
Isn’t the issue more about the widening gap and how this is indicative of the social value/esteem placed on academics? While dsquared is right to say the issue of desert seems irrelevant in a market economy, where public sector jobs are concerned, there is nevertheless something not quite socially right about the disparity in pay between a starting school teacher and a second year lecturer even though market scarcity furnishes a perfectly rational explanation.
There is also the global comparative angle. Academia operates in a global environment, and the Brits are now reknown for the measly wages they pay to their university teachers. Facilitation of greater mobility would suggest that there should be better alignment of wages between countries. But this does little for the bottom of the scale problem.
fjm 06.03.06 at 4:34 am
The issue for me is less comparability than the “real” level of academic salaries. I pointed this out to my mother.
This year I moved to within spitting distance of the British Library, but in past years, purchase of research materials (cheaper than a trip to the BL) ran at around £2000 a year.
On top of that, research and conference funding has disappeared for many of us, so that’s around £1500 pa. minimum.
And far too much of my salary is made up of increments: a pitiful £2000 for London weighting, an increment for being a Curriculum Leader, a position my uni has decided it may abolish (to save money, not because the work will disappear). This is very common, particularly in the new universities.
Most of us have debts. Many of us put ourselves through the PhD (I did, more on that later) and half the time couldn’t even get loans because a PhD didn’t count as vocational. For the first five years of my working life, that was £1000 in fees, pa, and it’s gone up with no loan structure in place.
And then there is the little problem of relationships: once upon a time male academics married school teachers who could get jobs anywhere. Now there are female academics and they tend to partner up with other academics, and as it’s almost impossible to move insitutions, I know far too many who are effectively single parents. And so many academic couples (I am one) have to support two residences with no hope of that ever changing.
But I also wanted to return to the issue of PhD fees, because without a change in the pay scales and therefore the hope of paying of your debts while in academia, the demographics will continue its inexorable transformation into a gentleman’s profession.
Anyone looked around recently at the class background of academics? A cursory glance suggests the working class entrants are disappearing. I’m forty, and I, and a bunch of my friends came up from working class homes. With or without grants it was a huge financial struggle, and we all had time limits on how long we could look for an academic job. We all agree that we aren’t seeing new lecturers “like us”. A working class ex-PhD student can’t afford to subsidise the system to the degree many of us currently do.
Tim Worstall 06.03.06 at 4:59 am
Doesn’t this rather go back to the monopsony issue raised when we were talking about the impact of the limited choices women used to have in the job market?
It was William Hague (I know, not a name likely to garner parise around here) who suggested simply endowing all of the UK universities with a billion or so (shouldn’t make any difference to anything, the public borrowing required would simply be an explicit admission of an already implicit debt) and let them get on with organising themselves as they wish. Almost the first thing to go would be, I assume, any national pay scale or wage bargaining. With multiple employers competing for academics wages and conditions would rise.
Wouldn’t they?
Chris Bertram 06.03.06 at 5:32 am
I don’t see why there is “trouble†in the argument if that means professors in certain subjects get paid less. The argument is coherent.
Indeed. Actually professors in some subjects do get paid more than professors in others, since professorial salaries are individually negotiated. But this is not so for the other ranks. The “trouble” in the argument is if it is voiced in the mouth of someone trying to articulate the UCU case, since the union wants cross-subject uniformity.
Chris Bertram 06.03.06 at 5:34 am
Tim W: Average salaries might go up. But more likely is that they would go up in some institutions and not in others. The case for this is arguable, but, obviously, the union wants to maintain national pay bargaining and cross-institution uniformity.
abb1 06.03.06 at 5:36 am
[Comment deleted: abb1: please email complaints about the management of other comments threads to the author of the relevant post, rather than disrupting conversations elsewhere. CB]
Chris Bertram 06.03.06 at 5:37 am
By the way, academics (or doctors, lawyers etc who feel personally hard done by, for that matter) can always enter their household income into the “IFS calculator”:http://www.ifs.org.uk/wheredoyoufitin/ to get a sense of where they fit into the UK income distribution:
abb1 06.03.06 at 6:10 am
Abb1 persona doesn’t have an email, so maybe you could convey my feelings to your co-blogger.
Thanks.
Barry 06.03.06 at 7:59 am
Tim Worstall: “It was William Hague (I know, not a name likely to garner parise around here) who suggested simply endowing all of the UK universities with a billion or so (shouldn’t make any difference to anything, the public borrowing required would simply be an explicit admission of an already implicit debt) and let them get on with organising themselves as they wish. Almost the first thing to go would be, I assume, any national pay scale or wage bargaining. With multiple employers competing for academics wages and conditions would rise.
Wouldn’t they?”
Tim, I love ya like a brother, and I’m sorry for harshing you like this, but a first and only response of knee-jerk libertarianism is, IMHO, just not that useful.
My guess is that the first response of universities would be to collude on salaries, for the most part. More or less privately, depending on what British law says. The biggest factor is the independence (or lack thereof) for departments. If the university administrators have the final word, and generally don’t care what departments want, then most universities would be able to avoid paying too much, because they don’t need to hire academic stars, let alone superstars. If I were them, I’d also be partial to hiring couples just starting out, because that would help lock-in – the couple takes a huge financial hit for a move involving a single job offer.
In the US, universities have spent some time squeezing academic salaries (budgets are tight, don’t ya know), but administrators and administration budgets are the fastest growing category of spending. Frankly, I find it hard to believe that even higher-level university administrators are in such short supply that the market forces high salaries; I figure that it’s another example of money sticking to the hands of those who handle it.
Stuart White 06.03.06 at 8:15 am
I share Chris Bertram’s egalitarian scepticism about the ‘restoring-relativities argument’ for industrial action. But given this scepticism I am then led to wonder if the industrial action is justifiable. Granted that there are other reasons for action – Chris cites the desirability of getting the government to keep faith with the rationale for top-up fees – the action also imposes real costs on students and one has to ask if these are justified by the other reasons given to support the action. I do not think they are.
Barry 06.03.06 at 8:25 am
Chris, the obvious reason for academics to organize is the simple fact that university adminstrators and the government already are organized. From various conversations on the net (chiefly here, some at Invisible Adjunct), it’s pretty clear that the British government and managers in academia are lusting after the American system. High tuitions, heavy use of adjuncts/grad students at low pay, very low starting salaries for regular faculty, a shrinking percentage of faculty who are tenured, combined with corporate-level status and pay for higher administration – what’s not to like, for them?
Justice isn’t a factor for them. They’ll gladly use their control to alter the ‘market’ so that it rewards them and screws over everybody else, and then plead ‘will of market’ to justify the results.
Chris Bertram 06.03.06 at 8:31 am
Barry, I’m not sure how you could understand anything I wrote as being in opposition to academics organizing. I merely wrote that _one argument_ often put by academics in favour of them getting pay increases — the catch up argument — should not be taken seriously as a claim about injustice. Maybe the catch-up argument can be defended on other grounds (incentive grounds for example), but imho the burning sense of injustice and resentment felt by many academics at their relative decline compared to other middle class occupations has no sound basis.
Guest 06.03.06 at 9:16 am
“…other middle class occupations…” I guess this might be the British classification. In the U.S. the academic was previously in the upper-middle class and is now (except for a few stars) firmly in the middle-class.
Certainly in the U.S. the academic has lost status over the past thirty years. This has a certain correlation with his or her financial pay, but I think is also a result of certain academic subjects losing the respect of the wider population.
nik 06.03.06 at 9:51 am
I think the most compelling reason for collective action is that the reason for academics’ slide down the ladder is that other public sector professions (teachers, doctors, civil servants, firefighters) have have had no problems promoting their interests, while academics has fallen relative to them because they haven’t been quite so ruthless.
Maybe any action of this form has no basis in justice, but why should academics miss out because they hold themselves to higher standards that other people? Maybe philosophers have professional reasons for that sort of behaviour, but I’m not sure people working in other disciplines do.
Bondwoman 06.03.06 at 9:55 am
Of course a billion pounds would be just small change as an endowment, given that Harvard’s stands at 25.9 billion dollars according to Wikipedia…
Cian 06.03.06 at 11:57 am
There are a number of issues that I think have to be seperated out.
First of all academic’s pay has falled behind – apparently you’d be better off financially training as a teacher.
Secondly, for many at the bottom, it is now extremely hard to get established, and by the time you have (if you manage it – postdocs are being increasingly abused), you will have considerable debts AND a low salary. This means that academia in the social sciences and arts is mostly becoming a game for those who have parents willing/able to subsidise their 20s.
Thirdly, due to house prices rapidly increasing, inflation for those who don’t own a house has been outrageous over the last ten years (but for various reasons this has not been reflected in the official inflation statistics). This means that for a lot of younger people, their salaries have fallen quite considerably in real terms.
As for the strike hurting students. Well yes, but what alternative do academics have? Is the alternative of the long, slow, death of academia as a career any better?
Stuart White 06.03.06 at 12:37 pm
The point that a number of contributors have made about young academics, debt and house prices is a good one, and I happily concede it strengthens the case for the action. But a policy of across-the-board pay rises for all academics isn’t necessarily the best way of addressing this problem. Much of the gain from this policy, here and now, will accrue to people who are not in the problem situation. Consider an alternative: a lower general pay rise plus more funds for schemes to address debt and house purchase, for example equity sharing schemes in which universities co-purchase houses with their staff. If the objectives of the action were more discriminating in this way I’d feel a lot more sympathetic to it, notwithstanding the possible damage to students’ interests.
etat 06.03.06 at 12:39 pm
“This means that academia in the social sciences and arts is mostly becoming a game for those who have parents willing/able to subsidise their 20s.”
Correct, but make that 20s and 30s.
And I’ve yet to see anyone make any sort of detailed cases as to how the strike hurts students in any plausible way. Are this year’s students so tied to a timetable that if they miss their degrees this year their careers go into a tailspin? I think not.
etat 06.03.06 at 12:43 pm
“Consider an alternative: a lower general pay rise plus more funds for schemes to address debt and house purchase, for example equity sharing schemes in which universities co-purchase houses with their staff. If the objectives of the action were more discriminating in this way I’d feel a lot more sympathetic to it, notwithstanding the possible damage to students’ interests.”
But Stuart, what profession a has ever developed a scheme like that for its member? Aside from the military, that is. It is a nice idea, but an across-the-board increase is probably on the table partly because it’s more likely to be sustained than the kind of programme you’re thinking of.
Tim Worstall 06.03.06 at 12:44 pm
Bondwoman: Apologies, you’re right. Hague’s figure was a decade ago too. U Bristol (where I think Chris B is?) has a turnover of 240 million or so. Without digging too deeply into the figures there’s some of that comes from research grants and so on. Plus say 40 million or so under the new rules on student fees?( 11,500 undergrads at 3k each a year plus some unknown number of overseas at higher and post grads?) Depends on returns to the endowment of course but say 1.5 billion?
Barry: knee jerk libertarianism? I always thought I was a Classical Liberal (just when did American liberalism stop being economically liberal?)
But a cartel of a 130 odd players? (that number might be wrong, just eyeballed the Wikipedia list). Such cartels are illegal in UK law (well, mostly) and I’d be astonished if such a thing could be successfully maintained legal or not.
Share the suspicion of the bureaucrats though…tends to be competition that kills bureaucracies as well.
S 06.03.06 at 12:49 pm
I’m confused to what is actually going on in British academia. Commenters here say that UK academics are paid less and conditions are worse than abroad– but in my own experience and my own field Biomedicine that just does not ring true. In particular with funding cut in the US a lot of colleagues are returning here looking for positions. On my visits to Germany and Italy the job market and pay seemed a lot tougher. As for the pay scale I’ve always thought of it as irrelevant to most of us as if you were doing good research and people wanted you then you would just get bumped up the increment– and if you werent then you’d lose funding and be gone anyway. Is it different in humanities?
99 06.03.06 at 1:09 pm
If you want to be paid like a stockbroker, you should run your operation like one, and, sorry, humanities departements would junk if they tried to issue bonds.
I’d love to trade my hanging on the margins of the private sector and living on the seedy side of town for lifetime job security that forces me to live on the seedy side of town. Send me a list of those academics so we can swap — I’m sure they’ll love the freedom (and massive pay increase, perhaps as much as 20 or 30%!) I have.
Sebastian Holsclaw 06.03.06 at 1:14 pm
“But, surprise surprise, the universities still say they can’t afford to salary increases better than a measly 13.1 per cent over three years.”
Is that really considered measly? Are raises for non-promotions really that high in the UK. In the US private sphere getting a raise of 4% per year for 3 years in a row without getting a promotion would be considered not amazing but certainly not measly. And that is only 12.5% over three years.
“The point that a number of contributors have made about young academics, debt and house prices is a good one, and I happily concede it strengthens the case for the action. But a policy of across-the-board pay rises for all academics isn’t necessarily the best way of addressing this problem.”
I agree with Stuart on this. A key problem I have with all sorts of more leftish argumentation involves cases where the defense of the program is something like “avoiding elderly poverty” but the solution involves something like “giving everyone X”. If the problem is that young professors can’t make it, give them housing stipends for the first two years. Or give them sliding scale subsidies for other things. The fact that they don’t get paid enough is no argument whatsoever that everyone in the academic world should get paid more. (It might help to think of it this way. Would you say that the low pay of these struggling people entering the field would justify across the board pay raises for everyone in a university–including administrators?)
Bary 06.03.06 at 2:11 pm
Chris: “Barry, I’m not sure how you could understand anything I wrote as being in opposition to academics organizing. I merely wrote that one argument often put by academics in favour of them getting pay increases—the catch up argument—should not be taken seriously as a claim about injustice.
Maybe the catch-up argument can be defended on other grounds (incentive grounds for example), but imho the burning sense of injustice and resentment felt by many academics at their relative decline compared to other middle class occupations has no sound basis.”
Chris, people generally don’t get pay raises through justice. I think that that is a bad starting point for everything except propaganda.
Bary 06.03.06 at 2:13 pm
Tim, the US term for your political persuasion is, at best, ‘libertarianism’. ‘Classical liberalism’ is a rather obsolete term by now.
etat 06.03.06 at 4:21 pm
Sebastian, I would be perfectly content to live in employer-subsidised accommodation, provided it were decent in all respects. I would also be deeply grateful if they magically nullified my loans, currently in excess of $55,000. Those two things would be more than enough to offset the other things I have to put up with. Particularly if there was some prosepct of long-term stability.
But guess what? No employer offers any such things. So, guess what? I reckon that a pay rise of 13% has to cover the lack of pay rises in the last X number of years (along with the peculiarities of job prospects generally) and prospectively, the next X number of years as well.
It’s that simple. Employers are not thinking creatively, unlike you. They think punitively. They have a choice.
Ben 06.04.06 at 5:28 am
As a current doctoral student, probably planning on academia, I have plenty of selfish reasons for backing the strike. Basically, I’d like to free ride on the actions of current lecturers, in the hope of enjoying a slightly more reasonable salary when I finish.
Thankfully I have had funding for my graduate studies, but I still owe about £13,000 and rising to the Student Loans Company for my first degree. Plus the graduate funding has only been £8k x 2 years plus £12k x 2 years, which is probably a year short of what I need to finish, so will leave me further in debt.
I don’t see how this is supposed to be such a grave harm to existing students. It’s hardly comparable to, say, a fireman’s strike – which is one of the measures that’s seen their pay rise faster than academics.
I do see the points made about not needing an across the board rise though. I think it’s junior academics struggling to get on the housing ladder and pay off their debts that need the money most. Top professors will of course attract some of the money they deserve, but I don’t think anyone needs to be paid that much to do the job…
Mike Otsuka 06.04.06 at 10:26 am
I can’t support the 23% across-the-board rise in pay (phased in over three years) that the union is demanding for the following two reasons:
(1) Rather than targeting those at those at the lower end of the pay scale who need it most, such a rise would have the opposite effect. When measured in terms of how many extra pounds they will receive, it would increase the pay by a greater amount of those who are already earning more than entry-level lecturers and who typically don’t need to pay as much per square foot of housing as people starting out. People at the top of the pay scale, who are likely to have been on the property ladder longest, would receive the most. I can’t see how anyone who is an egalitarian could honestly defend this.
(2) A 23% pay rise would drive universities further into deficit, a likely consequence of which will be fewer decent (permanent rather than low-paid temporary) jobs available for entry-level academics in the future, and less money for other things too. Financially, an implementation of the union’s demand would be nice for people like me who are relatively high up on the pay scale and who have been on the property ladder for a few years. But even in self-interested terms, I don’t think relatively well-off academics would benefit from an implementation of the union’s demand unless they cared about little more than the size of their pay cheque and didn’t also much care whether their department experienced a hiring freeze, or whether permanent posts that come vacant in their department were replaced by rolling temporary posts, or whether there was money available to keep the buildings in good order and leave the libraries well-stocked, etc.
Union supporters might reply to (2) by arguing that the government should increase the funding of universities so as to fully cover the 23% pay rise. The problem with this argument is that, even if the government were to raise taxes as much as it could without being kicked out of office and replaced by a more fiscally conservative government, there are other things, such as programs that redistribute to the poor, that would have a greater claim on tax revenues than relatively-well-off academics.
Cian 06.04.06 at 12:07 pm
There are all kinds of things that have a greater claim on the public purse. One day they may even manage to get some of that money.
Meanwhile, money is found for nuclear missile systems, wars in Iraq, PFI deals, dividends for the shareholders of “private” companies, management consultants, seemingly endless hordes of administrators and many other things. So what’s your point exactly?
Mike Otsuka 06.04.06 at 12:48 pm
Cian,
My point is that there are things other than giving a 23% raise to academics at the top of the pay scale that would have a greater claim on money that would be available to spend if it were spent responsibly. What’s your point?
Bondwoman 06.04.06 at 4:23 pm
So where do you draw the line? Academics on the minimum wage?
PersonFromPorlock 06.04.06 at 5:05 pm
So where do you draw the line? Academics on the minimum wage?
Why not? God knows I suffered through enough of ’em that were unskilled workers. Just possibly, the wages academics are paid reflect their real value to society.
Mike Otsuka 06.04.06 at 6:24 pm
Bondswoman,
I believe that, under the current salary scale that has recently been introduced, entry-level permanent lecturers can expect to start at about £30,000 (= roughly $55,000 USD), people at the next rank up (senior lecturer or reader) begin at about £40,000 (= roughly $75,000 USD), and the minimum salary for a professor is about £50,000 (= roughly $95,000 USD), with many professors being paid considerably more. (All these figures are before taxes.)
I’m a reader who earns between £40,000 and £50,000. When I plug my own salary after taxes and National Income (using this web page to figure out how much tax and NI I owe http://www.listentotaxman.com) into this Institute for Fiscal Studies web page http://www.ifs.org.uk/wheredoyoufitin , I learn that I earn more than 95% of the population of Britain. Admittedly, my having no dependent children places me in a higher percentile than I otherwise would have been in. But even if I were a single parent with two dependent children of 10 and 12 years old, I’d still be earning more than 75% of the British population.
A starting permanent lecturer who earns £30,000 and is a single parent with two dependent children, one who is 2 and the other 5, would earn more than 58% of the British population. (If that person were childless, he or she would earn more than 87% of the population.)
I don’t know where exactly to draw the line, but if you’re earning more than, say, three quarters of the British population, then I don’t think you should expect much sympathy if you’re moaning about your low pay. And if you’re an egalitarian, you shouldn’t expect to find much in the way of justification for the union’s pay demand for someone earning at your level.
Ben 06.05.06 at 2:46 am
“if you’re an egalitarian, you shouldn’t expect to find much in the way of justification for the union’s pay demand for someone earning at your level”
Not entirely true because, as has been pointed out, one generally needs at least 7 years of university to qualify as an academic – often funded out of one’s own pocket, or loans. Someone going for a more modest job with GCSEs/A levels would be earning (albeit perhaps minimum wage) all that time, while someone who leaves university with a good first degree could be on £30k+ all the time you’re doing post-graduate study…
Now, admittedly egalitarians might say all those people with well-paid city jobs don’t deserve their money either, but one can be egalitarian and still accept some jobs being paid more if it’s compensation for their unpleasant nature or, in this case, costs of training.
Chris Bertram 06.05.06 at 3:38 am
but one can be egalitarian and still accept some jobs being paid more if it’s compensation for their unpleasant nature or, in this case, costs of training.
Given the level of workplace autonomy academics enjoy compared to most of the jobs, methinks the “compensation for their unpleasant nature” argument isn’t going to run. As for the “costs of training” point, that’s a very good argument for reducing the costs of training via a more generous provision of postgraduate funding.
Barry 06.05.06 at 7:55 am
Chris, if those training costs *are* reduced, that would be an argument against the pay raise. The proposition that training costs *should be* reduced is not an argument against the pay raise, because it hasn’t happened.
Any argument based on some improbable thing possibly happening is not a valid argument.
Chris Bertram 06.05.06 at 8:19 am
Any argument based on some improbable thing possibly happening is not a valid argument.
I guess I’ll leave it to any passing modal logician to pass comment on that as a general proposition. But since my point is about an alternative allocation of the same pot of money (the UK HE budget), it doesn’t seem absurd to me.
Jimmy Doyle 06.05.06 at 8:45 am
One may still support the lecturers’ action tactically, as it were, even if one doesn’t harbour any hope of a 23% rise (this indeed would seem to be a constraint of rationality) and, therefore, even if one agrees with Mike Otsuka that it would actually be unjust in various ways if such a rise were awarded across the board. I also agree with Chris that justice does not require that lecturers be able to buy a house in an exclusive area of town, even if a lot of other professionals can. My main reasons for supporting the action are two, both mentioned by Chris. One motive is simple preservation of professional self-respect: the action is an expression of protest at the brazen contempt with which the employers have treated us in the matter of pay and conditions over many years. One may question the propriety of strike-like action, which harms the interests of our students at least temporarily, as an assertion of self-respect (as Niall Ferguson effectively did in an especially odious opinion piece in the Sunday Telegraph); but we may legitimately infer from these years of contemptuous treatment, I think, that “this is the only language the employers understand.†This would not be sufficient reason by itself to acquiesce in harm to students, I think. But overall it seems to me a choice between harming students’ interests (temporarily) now and effectively harming very many more students’ interests, as well as our own, in the long term. That is, a refusal to speak the only language the employers understand will inevitably lead to continued deterioration in the sector. Incentives matter, as Mr Worstall frequently reminds us, and low pay at the bottom end cannot but result in a lower calibre of scholar entering the profession in the UK (as opposed to the US, or a different profession here). I am less sanguine than Chris about this and I think signs are already visible. It’s especially awful because it wouldn’t take that much of an improvement to make a huge difference: academics are obviously not in it primarily for the money anyway; they just want a starting salary that isn’t a complete joke relative to alternative careers that are real options. For the same reasons I agree with those commenters who urge better funding for postgraduate students. FJM, Cian, Etat and others are quite right that “academia in the social sciences and arts is mostly becoming a game for those who have parents willing/able to subsidise their 20s†(and 30s). Nearly everyone else in my department is ‘posh’, in the sense of having been to public school (in the British sense). While my department is a rather amazing place to be at the moment, it cannot be good for standards nationally to shrink the pool of potential academics in this way, quite apart from equality-of-opportunity considerations.
Sebastian Holsclaw 06.05.06 at 10:56 am
“I don’t know where exactly to draw the line, but if you’re earning more than, say, three quarters of the British population, then I don’t think you should expect much sympathy if you’re moaning about your low pay.”
And remember this is for the entry-level job while the earnings figures include people with experience at their jobs.
etat 06.05.06 at 4:42 pm
“And remember this is for the entry-level job while the earnings figures include people with experience at their jobs.” (Holsclaw, @#44)
“I believe that, under the current salary scale that has recently been introduced, entry-level permanent lecturers can expect to start at about £30,000 (= roughly $55,000 USD)”(Otsuka, @#38 )
Let’s have some references for these figures, and while you’re at it, let’s have some numbers of postgrads and postdocs who have been seeking academic jobs of any sort relative to the numbers of permanent full-timer lectureships available. Let’s also find out what the jobs they’ve been settling for are paying, and whether there’s any security in those jobs.
I would like my hunch to be proven wrong by a significant margin. My hunch – based on things like the number of postdocs I’ve seen come and go in the last 3 years, and the number of postgrads who left their field of choice after a year without a job offer – is that this £30K entry level academic is a rare beast in the academic kingdom.
I would be more inclined to believe figures for a lot of academic workers are slightly higher than a postgrad stipend, e.g. £15K-20K p/a for full time, short term work. And that the bulk of academic jobs for recent entrants, and some not-so-new hires, are not the lecturer/reader positions, but something more hardscrabble. Somebody prove me wrong.
Mike Otsuka 06.05.06 at 5:55 pm
“I believe that, under the current salary scale that has recently been introduced, entry-level permanent lecturers can expect to start at about £30,000 (= roughly $55,000 USD)â€(Otsuka, @#38 )
Let’s have some references for these figures … My hunch … is that this £30K entry level academic is a rare beast in the academic kingdom.
I would be more inclined to believe figures for a lot of academic workers are slightly higher than a postgrad stipend, e.g. £15K-20K p/a for full time, short term work.
Okay: “The current minimum starting salary for a university lecturer is £24,352, but most start significantly higher up the scale.” http://www.ucea.ac.uk/Documents/12_pay/figures.pdf
The £30,000 figure to which I referred is a bit higher than the lowest point for a Lecturer B and a bit lower than the lowest point for a Grade 8 appointment under the new salary scale. Others can correct me if I’m mistaken, but I believe that that’s what an entry-level permanent lecturer can expect to earn.
and while you’re at it, let’s have some numbers of postgrads and postdocs who have been seeking academic jobs of any sort relative to the numbers of permanent full-timer lectureships available. Let’s also find out what the jobs they’ve been settling for are paying, and whether there’s any security in those jobs.
Yes, sir or mam, I’ll get right to it. I’ll have this on your desk first thing in the morning. Wait a second. Am I your servant?
Mike Otsuka 06.05.06 at 6:10 pm
Incidentally, when I wrote…
people at the next rank up (senior lecturer or reader) begin at about £40,000 (= roughly $75,000 USD), and the minimum salary for a professor is about £50,000 (= roughly $95,000 USD),
…I was basing the former on a rounding down of the £41,133 salary at the bottom of Grade 9 under the new salary scale and the latter on a rounding up of the £47,685 salary at the bottom of Grade 10.
See here for the new salary scale: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/hr/salary_scales/final_grades.php
Chris Williams 06.06.06 at 4:22 am
‘entry level permanent lecturer’ – OK, but I didn’t get a permanent job until I was 36. I didn’t get a salaried one until I was 31 (sick pay, holidays . . . mmm!). And I’m not alone in this. The academic career for the majority in the UK features a period of short-term contracts, un- or under-employment, and low paid hourly teaching jobs.
If the employers cared about this, and offered us 19% at the bottom end, and 13% at the top, they may well find that we vote for it.
By the way, lots of UK universities are not that keen on local bargaining: the implementation of the framework agreement has strained many personnel departments.
Chris Bertram 06.06.06 at 4:35 am
Etat’s posts in response to Mike seem rather off the point to me. Mike rightly says that entry level permanent lecturers aren’t too badly off compared the the UK population. Etat replies that those people aren’t actually typical of those at the bottom of the pile. Arguably, that’s right too. But for the reason Mike gives at point (2) of #33 above, the union’s demands are no good for the very people that etat is concerned about. Giving more across the board to those already in permanent positions is going to worsen the opportunities of those on temporary contracts and will ensure than many jobs that would have been permanent lectureships are converted into temporary serfdoms.
Cian 06.06.06 at 6:20 am
“My point is that there are things other than giving a 23% raise to academics at the top of the pay scale that would have a greater claim on money that would be available to spend if it were spent responsibly. What’s your point?”
But your argument is only really valid, if it is a straight choice between the pay of academics, or more money to the poor. This seems unlikely given the evidence of the last nine years.
“entry-level permanent lecturers can expect to start at about £30,000”
Except an entry level lecturer will usually be somebody who has completed an extra four years of education, followed by several years of poorly paid temporary employment (typically with each new post in a new city/university). They’re not exactly handing out those permanent lectureships at most places. At what age are people achieving such a post? mid 30s? That’s hardly entry level.
etat 06.07.06 at 5:16 am
Mike @#46: you may not be my servant (I haven’t taken on any domestic workers last time I checked), but I hope you work in service to a comprehensive argument, in which case there is some unevenness in the line you’re presenting, and I’d expect those to be addressed as a matter of course. Your response can be read as an attempt to duck out of that task.
Chris @#49. “the union’s demands are no good for the very people that etat is concerned about. Giving more across the board to those already in permanent positions is going to worsen the opportunities of those on temporary contracts and will ensure than many jobs that would have been permanent lectureships are converted into temporary serfdoms.”
This sounds plausible. But if we come back to the question of what’s realistic in terms of proposals and actually-delivered settlements, I still think that the strategy of an across-the-board settlement is more likely to occur than anything more equitable.
Given that the broader point of your original point is that it’s difficult to support the demand, my response is still that it’s probably the best chance for any sort of improvement.
I accept that I’m off point in any number of other ways, but with this one I think I’m on form.
etat 06.07.06 at 5:21 am
two typos:
1. I’d expect those > I’d expect that
2. your original point > your original post
apologies for any confusion.
Mike Otsuka 06.07.06 at 5:55 am
Etat: I think Chris at #49, and the (2) of my #33 to which he refers there, have already performed the relevant service to the argument.
Your reply is that you “still think that the strategy of an across-the-board settlement is more likely to occur than anything more equitable”. You haven’t done more than assert this claim. Where’s your evidence to back it up? Or do you think the burden of proof rests entirely on the other side?
The settlement that was actually reached yesterday happened to be one that offered a greater percentage increase in pay to the least well off rather than an equal percentage increase across the board. Those who got more were cleaners, porters, security staff and other non-academic university workers. But I don’t see why, in light of this settlement, you still deny the feasibility of a greater percentage increase to those at the bottom of the academic scale and a correspondingly lesser increase to those higher up. I think this is the settlement that we would have ended up with if the union had demanded it, which, to their great discredit, they didn’t.
etat 06.08.06 at 2:08 am
Mike, are we splitting hairs over this?
One of my initial points was the I wanted to see some sources. You provided something, after the fact, in #47. But, just prior to that, your remark in #46 lent itself to the idea that you were ducking out of that responsisbility. So, note that I didn’t say you refused to respond positivley. You’re doing something similar in #53, by attemtpting to turn the tables. But this won’t work, because I never made emphatic claims abot numbers. I have couched all of my remarks in subjective qualifiers. So I don’t need to provide evidence. I took that approach becasuse I don’t have the evidence, and don’t pretend that I know. I made that quite clear.
As for the pay settlement, I note the increase for cleaners, but last I heard, they were not tasked with academic duties. I applaud the efforts to raise their wages, along with efforts of the Living Wage campaign, but I don’t see this as helping lower tier academics. I’m ambivalent about the settlement.
That said, I take your point. Perhaps the union would have succeeded if they’d taken the approach you suggest. That’s a point to keep in mind for the next time.
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