皇家华人

We were joined by striking cleaners, porters and security staff organised by the IWGB. A joint protest march of over 500 staff took us to the HQ of UCEA and UUK (Woburn Place) and Bidborough House (the offices of colleagues in Professional Services including Estates and HR).

Following the protest, UCU members had a final Strike Committee meeting in Hamilton House and discussed preparations for returning to work, followed by the #IncludeUS rally with speakers on disability equality, NEU General Secretary Kevin Courtney and others.
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We thank the many hundreds of staff and students that supported our picketing and Teach-Out activities directly, and all those who stayed at home on strike or otherwise supported our action by studying or working elsewhere.
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During this phase of industrial action we recruited 5 times more members than usual in the run-up to the action, and many more joined as the action progressed. Now would be a good time to ask colleagues to consider听!

On returning to work...

We understand that many colleagues will return to work facing a huge backlog. This shows the effectiveness of our strikes. We will be under a lot of pressure to catch up with lost work.听

Action Short Of A Strike (ASOS) will be ongoing. Our听听has some helpful advice about this:

鈥淲hile a strike is a concerted stoppage of work, action short of a strike (ASOS) is normally action which affects only certain aspects of your work. Since the changes introduced by the Trade Union Act 2016 we have to determine and ballot members regarding the types of action short of strike we are calling. Action short of a strike in these disputes means we are asking you to:

• work to contract
• not cover for absent colleagues
• not reschedule lectures or classes cancelled due to strike action
• not undertake any voluntary activities鈥�

The FAQ goes on to consider e.g. what does working to contract mean, what does refusing to reschedule lectures or classes cancelled due to strike action mean? Etc.

Reporting strike participation

HR has asked staff to complete an online form to record absences due to strike participation.听

• Staff do not need to report ASOS participation, even if the website has the capacity to class data as ASOS.
• If your working pattern is part time and irregular, or you are hourly paid (e.g. PGTAs) we recommend that you identify those hours that you were on strike and write to your line manager if asked.
• For example, hourly paid PGTAs who prepare tutorials or carry out marking but only struck during contact hours should only document those contact hours they have withdrawn.
• UCL has confirmed that strike pay deductions will be at a rate of 1/365 per day or pro-rata per hour.

We are currently challenging UCL鈥檚 hard-line of making all strike pay deductions in a single month. We will keep you posted on this.

Publicising our work to contract

Suggested email footer 鈥� for Action Short Of a Strike (ASOS) days (ongoing, starting 25 November):

鈥淢y trade union (UCU) has instructed its members in 60 universities 鈥� including UCL 鈥� to 鈥渨ork to contract鈥�. This means that outside my contracted hours I won鈥檛 be answering emails and phone calls or seeing visitors or doing any other sort of work. I won鈥檛 be available in the evenings or week-ends, I may take longer to respond and I will have to prioritise work that is central to my role and the needs of my students/research/service-users. This action is part of a lawful industrial dispute. The disputes centre on negative听changes to the Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS)听and听universities' failure to make improvements on pay, equality, casualisation and workloads.

The National Union of Students has issued a joint statement with UCU in support of this action.鈥�

The UCU has produced听.

Thank you for supporting our action.