“The University and College Union says the plight of young academics who are desperate to get a firm footing on the career ladder is getting worse. Staff at 146 higher education institutions have until Thursday to vote on whether to strike once again – potentially before Christmas – over unfair pay, “untenable” workloads and casualised contracts.” Vicky Blake, the president of UCU, said: “Many people are still shocked to learn that higher education is one of the most casualised sectors in the British economy. There are at least 75,000 staff on insecure contracts: workers who are exploited, underpaid, and often pushed to the brink by senior management teams relying on goodwill and a culture of fear.” Related HE’s casual approach to employment
“The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion (to which few members of other civilizations were converted) but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact; non-Westerners never do.” —Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilisation and the Remaking of the World Order, 1996, p. 51