As you may be aware, some members of staff at the University are planning to participate in industrial action as part of national disputes about pensions and pay.
The University’s number one priority at this time will be to minimise any disruption this may cause to your education.
These are national disputes – 68 universities have mandates for strike action on the pay and/or pensions dispute. Whilst every effort is being made in negotiations at a national level to resolve the disputes, we have been notified that action will take place on 20, 21, 24-26 February and 2-5 and 9-13 March 2020.
The scale of likely disruption is far from clear, given that only a minority of our academic, professional and managerial staff are members of the University and College Union (UCU), which has called the strike, and not all of them support this action. Some may decide not to strike at all and some may not strike on all 14 days. We expect that the majority of staff will be working as normal during the period of strike action, but some areas of the University are likely to experience higher levels of industrial action than others. The majority of assessment sessions, including midterm exams, will go ahead as planned.
We are planning for every eventuality and are committed to ensuring you are not disadvantaged academically as a result of the strike.
Cancelled teaching sessions
As staff do not have to inform the University in advance that they intend to take strike action, unfortunately we cannot give you advance notice of cancelled sessions, although some of your lecturers may do so. It is therefore important that you assume all activities are going ahead, including the supervision of projects and dissertations, and that you attend as planned unless you hear definitively from your lecturer or School office that a teaching event will not take place. If a member of staff does not arrive for a teaching session at its planned start time, please wait for a few minutes to be sure that they are not late before you leave. If a member of staff takes strike action on one day, it should not be assumed that they will continue to do so on other days.
You should continue to submit assignments to existing deadlines. You will be informed of any changes to the dates for the return of marked work, which may need to be delayed due to strike action.
If on one of the days with industrial action you arrive for a meeting with your dissertation/final year project supervisor and they are not there and you think that this will affect your work then please inform the School Office as soon as possible and they will record this. If you think you will need an extension because of this, please indicate how many sessions have been missed, providing details of days and times. Your Head of Department will consider the impact of missed supervision and you will be informed of any extension to your submission deadline in a timely fashion.
Lecturers have to inform the University that they have taken action when they return to work so your department will be aware of any sessions which have been missed. Please note that, in line with UCU’s action short of a strike, alternative learning materials for missed teaching sessions may not be made available by your lecturers and we therefore encourage you to make use of background reading on missed topics as far as you can.
You may be concerned about the potential impact on your ability to complete coursework and answer examination questions and we would like to reassure you that we will make certain that no student is disadvantaged as a result of the strike action. We will be aware of where missed teaching sessions may have an impact on some coursework or exam questions and we have processes in place for our Board of Examiners to ensure that your attainment and progression is not unduly affected, whilst maintaining academic standards.
Further context
We recognise that staff have strongly felt concerns about their pensions and pay. The pensions issue relates to changes to the USS pension scheme, which many of our staff are members of. The University supports arrangements introduced in October 2019 that protect current pension benefits and place a cap on contributions until September 2021. Importantly this allows time to find a long-term solution to resolving the deficit that the pension scheme faces. As with pensions, pay arrangements are handled at a national level and individual universities are not involved in the negotiations. For more details on the background to the dispute and other information, please visit our FAQs page here.
Wellbeing support
I recognise that the strike action may be a cause of concern and worry for you. If at any time you feel you might benefit from some extra support, please access our wellbeing drop-in, located in the Alsop Building. To ensure all students can access wellbeing support we will be extending the hours of this service to 10am – 4pm on every day industrial action takes place. You don’t need to book – simply come along to the Student Welfare Advice and Guidance Information Point on the ground floor of the Alsop Building (on University Square) and you will be able to access practical and pastoral support in a confidential space. Information on all other support available can be accessed here.