Dear member,
Despite providing UUK and UCEA – the organisations representing university employers – several weeks to reflect on their positions and to resolve this dispute, there has been no solution found nor has there been any meaningful effort on their part. It is therefore with regret and deep frustration that we write to you to call you out on strike action on the following dates:
Thursday 24th November
Friday 25th November
Wednesday 30th November
Members are asked to report to the UCU office on those dates from 8am onwards, with pickets taking place at various locations around the campus. Our current itinerary is as follows, although is subject to change:
- In recognition that 24th November is a strike day for many schools across the country, we encourage members who are parents or carers to ‘bring your kids to work’ in order to experience the picket and to learn about worker solidarity. The branch has arranged children’s entertainment to help keep them occupied and captivated.
- On 25th November pickets will take place across campus, before your branch will meet with sister UCU branches, and our colleagues from EIS, for a demonstration at the Buchanan Street steps starting at 12.30pm.
- On 30th November plans are in place for a demonstration outside Holyrood; more details will be conveyed to you through social media or on the picketline.
Your picketline have been places of good humour, noise, vibrancy and solidarity. For many of us it is a rare opportunity to engage with colleagues away from the incessant paperwork, overwork and pressure of our various positions within the library, admin, professional services, finance, teaching, research and student support. Please come along and continue this trend and demonstrate your opposition to the direction Higher Education is heading.
Your union also calls on you to initiate Action Short of a Strike (ASOS) for an indefinite period from Wednesday 23rd November. Details of ASOS can be found here, but as a rough guide it consists of the following:
- 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.
Should you require any advice or assistance regarding ASOS please do contact the branch office or seek support from members within your department. ASOS is effective, but also emotionally challenging; please extend your solidarity to colleagues across the university and use this action to encourage UUK and UCEA to resolve this dispute swiftly.
Given the proximity of Christmas, and the ongoing effects of our wage degradation over the past decade and more, many members have contacted the branch office to enquire about access to the strike fund.
Claims to these funds can only be made after deductions have been made by the employer however, we have not been advised when these will take place. Members at Strathclyde are required to make a claim to the national UCU strike fund through this webpage. Staff earning less than £30k p.a. are able to request payment of £75 per day, those over £30k p.a. would receive payment of £50 per day.
Having done so, members can then make an application to the local hardship fund in order to receive further compensation for lost wages. The committee are particularly eager to encourage the lowest paid staff and those in precarious employment to take advantage of these funds, which is designed to support those members who experience the greatest hardship. Further information regarding this is following, whilst further questions about the action more widely may well be answered here.
Finally, please remember that as we collectively enter this stage of industrial action that we are not alone. 150 branches are taking part in this action, with 70,000 members set to benefit. Not only that, but sister unions within Strathclyde had won convincing mandates and will soon join us in taking action; a situation that is repeated across the Scottish university sector. Moreover, hundreds of thousands – perhaps millions – of workers from RMT, Unite, GMB, RCN, CWU, Unison, Aslef, EIS, BMA and many more have risen up and said Enough Is Enough. Staff and students deserve better, but it won’t just be handed to us. Join your union – and our sister unions – in this action and secure a better deal for us all.
In solidarity,
Strathclyde UCU committee.