AS a postdoctoral research assistant in a university (Manchester), whose career is approaching a rather premature full stop, I would like to say that I do not believe the AUT's industrial action for higher wages is justified.

From a contract researcher's viewpoint, wages are not particularly bad. You simply do not get to enjoy them for very long, as you will always be on fixed-length contracts.

The AUT should be addressing this aspect of academic life first rather than, in a typically British way, looking after the needs of those at the top of the pile first and forgetting those of us at the very bottom (which is why I did not and would not ever join the AUT).

Lecturers say their pay is poor compared to industrial pay. Why, then, choose not to work in industry? Academic freedom (whatever that actually is) comes at a price. If you want to avoid working in industry, implicitly you have chosen to avoid industrial wages.

The AUT's problem is with the Government and the Higher Education Funding Council (HEFCE), but they are taking it out on universities and on their students.

Lecturers should realise that can have a devastating impact on other people's careers. Besides, universities cannot to pay their staff with money they do not have.

I'm 37 now and have been told I am too old to apply for research funding. I have a disability which caused a two-year "career break" and I fear that I won't work in science again.

Next year I'll be begging down at Tesco for a job and praying that they don't just laugh me out of the place.

AUT members mark those student exam papers and be grateful you've got a permanent job!

Dr Richard Greaves, Morehall Close, York.