The fact is, I guess, that everyone says they value higher education, but most taxpayers are unwilling to fork out a higher percentage in taxes to support it. That's certainly the case here.

Rhub's comments on the British system are well-taken; British unions have always had more power than in other places.

However, academicians do not make good unionists; it's like trying to herd cats. I was the secretary of a branch of ASTE, the polytechnic lecturers' union, for a couple of years last century, and it was like trying to herd cats. I constantly found myself saying things like "Yes, I know the poly's state funding is reducing by 1% per year, but should you really let that influence YOUR standard of living?" or "Poly funding is one issue, income from other sources, including direct payments by students, are another. The poly's hurting, but not as much as us working for about 60% of what we could get in the commercial sector." or "So you have no problem about management steam-rollering us into accepting redundancies when we know perfectly well that the quality of the teaching will suffer?"

Yeah, it's a real bundle of laughs!


The idiot also known as Capfka ...