The University of Liverpool has made the harsh and callous decision to demand that its administrative staff turn up to work in person for three days a week instead of the two they are currently subjected to. This matches an attempt by the Conservative government in 2023 to impose a 60:40 rule on the Civil Service.
Unsurprisingly, the Unite union has focused on the total indifference by the University to the welfare of its staff, and as a result over 300 are set to walk out. The Telegraph has the story:
University of Liverpool employees – who receive a guaranteed, inflation-linked pension for life, along with a generous tax-free lump sum – will walk out on Friday and Saturday to coincide with the university’s open days.
Members of the Unite union accused the university’s leadership of “riding roughshod” over the “well-being and personal lives” of staff members.
Current rules dictate that employees in administrative roles must come into work two days a week, but bosses are demanding staff attend in-person for three days.
A University of Liverpool spokesman said the new requirement for staff to be in attendance 60% of the working week is “intended to strike the right balance as a face-to-face higher education provider”.
It’s clear that actually going to work is a terrible imposition that leaves some worked chin-strapped by the ordeal:
One staff member said: “It takes me 15 minutes on the train, but 45 minutes walking to get to campus. Now I’m hybrid working, I have to carry a backpack with all my work gear which can weigh up to 10kg due to laptop, headphones, lunch and anything else required for a day away from home.
“By the time I’ve finished two days on campus, I am so tired physically and mentally that I’m good for nothing the following day.”
The worker could of course have a lighter lunch, and what else is required for a ‘day away from home’? It’s not like landing on the beaches in Normandy in 1944. But it does sound as if working from the office for five days a week might be less trouble, but perish the thought.
Obviously, the strike is entirely the fault of the university:
Unite regional officer, Sam Marshall, said: “Strike action will cause huge disruption across the university campus, but this is entirely the fault of university management which has refused to listen to its workers and openly negotiate.
“The University of Liverpool leadership can stop the planned industrial action by being willing to negotiate in good faith.”
Meanwhile, of course, the entire university edifice is funded by student debt:
As university employees go on strike, students are being saddled with ever-increasing debt after finishing their degrees. Figures from the Student Loans Company show loan balances were £5,000 higher in 2024–25 than the year before, with the average coming in at £53,000.
The BBC’s take is that:
Unite said it had highlighted concerns about the negative impact the change would have on employees’ work-life balance, personal wellbeing, family-friendly working and the principle of flexibility that hybrid working arrangements was intended to support.
General secretary Sharon Graham said university management had “tried to ride roughshod” over staff work, wellbeing and personal lives, adding, “rather than issuing diktats it should be treating workers fairly and decently”.
The university spokesman said: “Many staff already spend all or most of their working time on campus and the change to at least 60% for those who work part of their time from home is intended to strike the right balance as a face-to-face higher education provider.”
It’s difficult to avoid concluding that Unite’s ultimate vision for workers is a lifetime at home, unburdened by any work duties at all so that they can concentrate on spending their salaries, while looking forward to their gold-plated pensions, and walking the dog or watching daytime TV. Perhaps they could also go to the gym and do enough exercise to be able to pick up a backpack without expiring and go on holiday too.
But then as David Starkey observed in a video the other day about how Covid induced a kind of madness, “because you pay people for doing nothing, people get in the habit of doing nothing, and people wonder why we suddenly see this extraordinary increase in people of working age who don’t do anything” (spin forward to 03m 05s).
There’s a strange irony that half a century ago in 1974 the country was on its knees because of the Three-Day Week imposed by Ted Heath’s Conservative Government in response to coal miners’ strikes. Most workers back then were desperate to get back to their jobs. Not any more it seems, at least for those in jobs covered by certain unions.
The University of Liverpool strike is a parable for our times.
The Telegraph’s piece is worth reading in full.
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