howsillyofme1 wrote:
Why is criticising the massive pay of the VC and others dismissed as 'populist'? It is being criticised because VC pay seems to rise at a much higher rate than everyone else whilst the academic staff (apart from the ones who are on tv a lot) get their pay frozen or small increases
We hear this 'if we don't pay them more then they will go to the US' all the time from the private sector and now it seems to be prevalent in this sector - I think this is probably one of the weakest arguments with very little to back it up - and are we so pisspoor at succession planning that we cannot replace these self-identified ubermenschen?
It may be a difficult job (although I am not convinced it is as difficult as you make it sound), but so are many others and they do not get large pay increases
I think the "US" argument is overdone with lots of stuff. I mean, the UK isn't regarded as world class in many things, so the US (or whoever) in most fields doesn't bother with the UK. I expect in most cases the US thinks "Wow, that's nice you did well in the UK".
But we've got lots of world class universities, and there are lots of established links- David Blanchflower, for one, made the America point. I think it's something we have to watch out for, but I wouldn't say no VCs are overpaid, for sure.
Criticising VC pay isn't populist necessarily, or in most cases, and wasn't in your case, or the UCU's. I think there is an element to it, on which the Times are picking up on. That's what I'm calling "populist", and the UCU have to be a bit careful.