Why crossing the picket is never a kindness

Note: For anyone landing here and unsure of why the University and College Union are on strike in the first place, here’s my guide for the perplexed.

Hi. Yep, I’m talking to you.

Well, of course I am. There’s no point in me talking to the people who don’t think it’s their problem when their colleagues are exploited.

No. I’m talking to you, my dear colleague (maybe even friend) who has been showing up to the pickets, who can see where we’re going if we don’t resist… and who plans to break the strike, just to teach that one class, just to read that one draft, just to grade that one assignment. Because it’s so important to the students.

I’m begging you. Please, don’t.

Lots of people have made this point more eloquently than me. But disrupting the usual business of the university is the whole point of withdrawing our labour. If you strike for most of the time and just go in when there’s that really crucial thing to do, then all it means is you’re undermining the strike in the most efficient way possible.

It’s the worst of both worlds. You forfeit most of your pay and the university gets to say that it did just fine without you. They feel no need to listen to demands for better working conditions. Crossing the picket always undermines the action — even when it isn’t as cynical as this. And the more crucial the task, the more important it is that you don’t do it.

So, crossing the picket isn’t a kindness to students in general, because the point of the strike is to give the students a better learning environment. And is it even a kindness to those specific students you’ve been lying awake worrying about? I’m not sure it is. I think it just means they get to be among the people whose short-term interests were served while Higher Education was dismantled and replaced with a highly expensive yet cheaply produced commodity. ‘Kind’ is… debateable here.

I know why you want to do it, though. You’re only human. You’re a person who cares about your students — that’s why you’re here, after all — and your compassion for your students (and colleagues) has been weaponised against you from the moment you started working in HE.

Here’s what I think the dominant rhetoric is telling you and why it’s wrong:

Lie Number One: It’s your individual choice whether those particular students get let down or not.

Well, this is wrong. Sure, you’re in a horribly tough position right now. I can only imagine how your heart must be breaking. We weren’t all scheduled to do the same stuff for the days of this action. Some of us are going to have to be more visible in our absence than others. Some of us will have more pressure on us than others. But this is a collective action and your colleagues have your back. I have your back. This isn’t about you as an individual choosing to ‘let your students down’ — it’s about taking part in a collective action to benefit all of us.

Lie number Two: It’s your individual fault when those particular students don’t get taught.

Nope! Shall we talk about why you’re in such a cruel place right now? Well, first, you’re in a cruel position because our employers will chip away at our working conditions year on year unless we resist them effectively. Second, you’re in a cruel position because not everyone with a stake in the future of HE has walked out. If everyone who could join the union and strike did just that, this would be over by now.

In short: the disruption will not be your fault. The disruption will be the immediate result of the union choosing collectively to resist an assault on staff working conditions by our employers. And, ultimately, it will be the fault of the employers for screwing staff over.

Lie Number Three: You’re not being NICE!

OK, so this is not so much a lie as a total non sequitur. Going on strike is not nice. Going on strike is, to purloin-in-a-way-that-I-hope-is-forgivable the words of Sara Ahmed, to be a massive, massive killjoy. It’s so unseemly when people get uppity about rights. Feminists of colour have been pointing this out for long time and I’m going to say it here too: resisting injustice will always, always get you labelled as shrill and aggressive. You’ll be told that you’re the one rocking the boat, that it was all nice before you spoke up, that you’re making life unpleasant for everyone… When all other arguments have been refuted, what’s left is “Why can’t you just be nice? Can’t you just hang around quietly waiting to inherit the earth or something?”

It’s bullshit. Sure, it’s nice to be nice and all, but sometimes you have to make a bully stop hurting you.

So, to summarise: The unpleasantness of strike action is not your fault; no seriously it’s really not your fault at all; and don’t fall for ‘nice’.