University lecturer strikes

I am not sure how many people are left in universities working on non-academic areas. DS is a lecturer in a top Russell Group university and most of their admin workers have been sacked and the admin work handed to the academic staff. On top of that university managers and vice chancellors are always coming up with more bright ideas about how to 'enhance' their degrees. The currant one is every student must do a work placement during their degree. Who has to organise all these placement - why the lecturers of course. DS works in a field which is dominated by small partnerships and groupings, so when will he find time to do all this, probably several hours work at least per student?

He is one of the country's leading scholars in his field. Regularly invited to speak at conferences overseas, but, currently, he is, run-down, pale and exhausted, working 60 hours a week or more, plus commuting, and we are all wondering how long he can keep going before he has a breakdown.

Where I work - Russell group - some professors running departments are on short-term contracts. How do they obtain a mortgage, put down roots and show loyalty to the institution? Yes, mOnica has just about covered the demands on a lecturer.

I appreciate other workers in the institution are on far less generous pay scales Humbertbear.

Apropos, what I wrote above. Today there was a news item

Lecturer's widow hits out at Cardiff University workload

It was reporting the inquest on a university lecturer, who jumped from a university building for the very reasons given above.

I worry for my son.

And I feel we are all unintentionally complicit in the work overload situation! We want everything cheaply, we want our taxes reduced or at least not increased! But the impact is exactly what M0nica describes... in all aspects of public sector jobs and probably in private sector though I am less aware of that.
In Local Authorities the same thing happened: admin staff cut so front line workers do their own admin for same pay/hours.. In schools, hospitals tc. it is the same so the work that service users expect medical staff/teachers etc to do s reduced because they are busy doing more admin...which has increased due to the increased scrutiny & accountability and reduced real term budgets: something has to give.
It should not be a competition between private and public sector ..all should be able to be confident that the monies they pay into their pension pots will give them a sufficient return later in life and the ground rules should not change later in the game!