After the events at the University of Helsinki in 2015/16, one new role that I took on was shop steward (well, deputy) for my union. Like a few other professorial colleagues from other Faculties that I’ve met, I cut down on other ‘useless’ administrative work to devote time to union activities because I was shocked by how crudely the redundancies, as necessary as they may have been, were put into practice. The activities that this role involves have given me a vantage point from which to observe labour relations at the University. In addition, membership in the University’s Equality Committee complements these observations. Continue reading “Universities and managerialism”
Postscript on equality
In between fiddling with the settings of this blog and completing the first entry, I attended the meeting of the University’s Equality Committee where we discussed the action plan for the Equality and Diversity Plan 2017–2018 (unfortunately not available in English yet) that the Rector had approved over the summer months. One thing that I brought up as something worth developing are the University’s recruitment practices. Continue reading “Postscript on equality”