Strike day 2: well done again and join our online event, 7pm tonight

Get ready to carry all your enthusiasm and momentum into the third and final day by joining our online solidarity event this evening at 7pm. The event is hosted on Twitter Spaces but you don't need a Twitter account to join.

As for tomorrow, if you are in London please join me and members from our London branches at Tavistock Square for a rally at 12:30pm.

A reminder of why your action matters

One UCU member I spoke to at Northampton told me a personal story that underlined just how much is at stake in our Four Fights dispute.

This member had brought her three-month old son to the picket line with her. She told me that she had been forced back into the classroom only six weeks after giving birth, because the terms of her employment on a casualised teaching contract do not entitle her to maternity leave.

She commented that fourteen years ago, she had worked for Sports Direct � a notoriously bad employer - but that today she was experiencing all the same shocking employment practices at the hands of a university instead.

Thousands of precariously employed staff go through similar experiences every year. Women and BAME staff are even more likely to be employed on fixed-term or hourly paid contracts that deprive them of employment rights like this, as UCU's recent report on precarity in the sector shows.

Keep up the pressure

You will have no doubt seen that the union generated huge amounts of press coverage yesterday, and that has continued today. If you subscribe to The Times you can read my article on the dispute which was published this morning.

All the coverage brings attention to our dispute and your active participation on picket lines and at rallies and online events has been a crucial part of that. We have also been inundated with messages of support and solidarity from our friends in the wider trade union movement and beyond, including the Labour deputy leader Angela Rayner.

People know we are right, but we know that being right does not win disputes. Action is what wins disputes, and the more people withdraw their labour tomorrow, the more power we have to force employers back to the negotiating table during the vacation and finally get serious offers out of them.

Keep in touch

To keep up with what's happening over the next two days, follow UCU on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, and post your support with the hashtags #OneOfUsAllOfUs and #UCUstrike.

If your branch is on strike and you can't make it to a picket line for health and safety or any other reasons, don't forget to observe the 'digital picket' by not posting about your work on social media.

Finally, if you have colleagues who get emails to their work address and aren't checking their inbox, let them know they can find all of my email updates to members here.

Best wishes for day three.

Jo Grady
UCU general secretary