The following FAQS are broadly based on and in many places replicate UCU’s national FAQs available here.
- Do I have to tell my employer that I am taking industrial action?
- What about my students?
- When will industrial action take place?
- Where will Essex UCU’s picket lines be and what times will they operate?
- When will ‘action short of a strike’ (ASOS) begin?
- When we take strike action, what should I do?
- When we take strike action, does this include online meetings and work?
- What does ‘refusing to reschedule lectures or classes cancelled due to strike action’ mean?
- Does refusing to reschedule classes include PhD supervisory boards?
- What does “removing uploaded materials related to, and/or not sharing materials related to, lectures or classes that will be or have been cancelled as a result of strike action” involve?
- I am an academic-related professional services (ARPS) staff; what do I do with regard to industrial action?
- I am not a UCU member; can I take part in industrial action?
No. It is often the case that management will send out emails/letters demanding that you declare in advance whether you will be taking industrial action. This can have the effect of misleading and intimidating members, and will enable your employer to minimise any disruption.
You are under no obligation to inform management in advance as to whether you will be taking part in strike action or action short of a strike. UCU will provide your employer with all the information about the action required by law including those categories of members who we are calling on to take action.
Once you are back to work following the strike action, you should respond truthfully to any query from your employer as to whether you have taken or are taking industrial action. You should not, however, respond to any such query while you are on strike.
UCU is a union of education professionals and we know that our members do not relish taking industrial action that affects our students, to whom you have dedicated so much of your energy, even during extremely challenging conditions like the Covid-19 pandemic. It is the same for many public services—doctors and nurses for instance.
However, if you take industrial action, you are making a case for greater investment in or defence of the quality of the education and research you provide. In the case of job cuts and rampant casualisation, for example, the union rightly argues that our students are hurt far more by management’s actions than by our own. Participating in an industrial action ballot and observing industrial action are defending the interests of staff and students alike—staff’s working conditions are students’ learning conditions. Undermining the ballot and strike action might feel like the right thing in the short term, but will only serve to embolden management and staff and students will all suffer even more in the longer term.
Formally, it is university management’s responsibility to explain to students if classes are to be cancelled on strike days. However, you may wish to talk to your students before any industrial action, explaining why the union is taking this step and asking them to write to university management to voice their concerns. You may also wish to discuss some of the practicalities which your students may not be familiar with—in particular, the fact that when you go on strike you will not be paid by your employer, or the fact that legal, official industrial action is preceded by a statutory industrial action ballot of trade union members.
The National Union of Students’ (NUS) vice president, Chloe Field, has issued the following statement on Tuesday 8 November 2022: ‘Students stand in solidarity with the 70,000 university staff across the UK who will strike later this month. Staff teaching conditions are students’ learning conditions, and we must fight together for a fairer, healthier education system for everyone who works and studies. Universities and employers must come to the table and take meaningful action to end these disputes’.
The full strike dates are:
- Thursday 24 November
- Friday 25 November
- Wednesday 30 November.
A national demonstration is planned for 1pm on 30 November at Kings Cross Station, London, N1 9AL. Currently, the branch is exploring arrangements to facilitate travel from Colchester to London.
The three pickets will be located at the car park entrances to EBS/North Towers, the Multistorey/Sports Centre and Park Rd/Wivenhoe House. They will run at 8.15-10.15am on each of the strike days.
You can sign up for the strike rota here.
Staff will begin action short of a strike (ASOS) from Wednesday 23 November onwards and until further notice at institutions in England, Wales and Scotland.
Action short of a strike will consist of the following until further notice:
- working to contract
- not covering for absent colleagues
- removing uploaded materials related to, and/or not sharing materials related to, lectures or classes that will be or have been cancelled as a result of strike action
- not rescheduling lectures or classes cancelled due to strike action
- not undertaking any voluntary activities.
Please note that the higher education committee (HEC) has not yet called for a marking and assessment boycott as part of action short of a strike.
If/when we call a strike, we ask that members do not do any work for all of the days specified by the union. This includes, for instance, time before 9am and after 5pm, and includes any activity which is part of your work such as teaching, administration, meetings, emails related to work, marking, research or conferences where you are directly or indirectly representing your employer. It also means not doing any preparation for work that you are due to do when you return to work after you strike. In a nutshell, if you are employed at one of the institutions on strike, do not do any work at all on strike days.
In a nutshell, yes. On strike days, UCU members will be involved in the concerted stoppage of all work—including any online or electronic work carried out via email and the internet (e.g. attending online meetings via Zoom, Teams or some other platform; checking/answering work emails, planning lectures/teaching, any online administrative activities, delivering/attending work-related webinars/training sessions, online research, writing papers and processing applications).
By ‘lectures or classes’ we mean any activity between any UCU member and a student or group of students which involves any instruction, tuition, communicating or sharing of knowledge or guidance.
This includes teaching which would have taken place on one of UCU’s strike days and covers instructional activities undertaken by UCU members who are professional services staff, as well as academic staff. You should, if asked, refuse to reschedule such sessions, stating that you are supporting UCU’s action short of a strike.
Yes. A PhD supervisory board generally provides instruction and the sharing of knowledge or guidance between staff and a student and therefore this is a teaching event. On this basis, you should not reschedule the session.
- What does “removing uploaded materials related to, and/or not sharing materials related to, lectures or classes that will be or have been cancelled as a result of strike action” involve?
Members refusing to add further to the resources that were already available prior to ASOS commencing will be covered by this ASOS, so once the ASOS begins members should refrain from uploading teaching materials for teaching sessions that will be or have been cancelled due to strike action. Members should not upload new material for use in relation to a specific lecture, tutorial etc which is cancelled due to strike action, and which the individual member would normally upload for use by students on that day if it were not for the fact the member was on strike.
The situation regarding removal of materials already on a Virtual Learning Environment or similar university system before the ASOS commences will vary; whether such materials can be taken down from a university system will depend on several factors including ownership of the materials and, for example, whether ownership rights are explicitly covered in staff contracts of employment. If in doubt about removal of teaching materials present on university systems before ASOS begins please contact your branch reps for advice.
- I am an academic-related professional services (ARPS) staff; what do I do with regard to industrial action?
The union is calling you to participate in industrial action. On strike days, this will involve the concerted stoppage of all work. For the duration that the union has called for action short of a strike (ASOS), UCU produced a separate FAQ/guidance for academic-related professional services (ARPS) staff taking part in ASOS.
On strike days, we would like everyone to respect the picket lines and not go into work. Non-UCU members who take part in legal, official industrial action have the same rights as UCU members not to be dismissed as a result of taking action. However, our strong recommendation is that you join UCU so that you have the protection of a trade union before you take part in industrial action.
If you have recently joined UCU and have provided the details requested on the UCU member application form, your UCU membership will be active from the date of application. This means that you are able to take part in any strike action while awaiting your membership number.