Thousands of university employees in the UK went on strike this week, according to Nature News.
It adds that more than 50,000 members of the University and College Union are protesting changes to their pension plans as well as poor pay and working conditions. Earlier this week, the board overseeing the Universities Superannuation Scheme, the pension plan, voted for a plan that the UCU says would amount a 23 percent cut to an average member's retirement benefits, Nature News says, noting that USS employers say it will be a smaller cut. The Financial Times reported in November that a "health check" of the scheme in March 2020 uncovered a £14 billion to £18 billion (US $18 billion to $24 billion) shortfall that these cuts are meant to address.
At the same time, Nature News reports that university employees are also experiencing burn out and say that pay increases have not kept pace with inflation.
"There is a sense that this is a sector that has reached the end of the road. The conditions under which people are working are unsustainable and they're feeling burned out," the University of Glasgow's Felicity Callard tells it.