I am sorry to report that the trade union University and College Union (UCU) has recently concluded a national ballot and achieved another mandate for industrial action at 150 participating universities, including Queen Mary.
This industrial action will affect 150 universities across the UK, and continues to concern nationally-negotiated issues including pay and pensions. While we fully respect the right of staff to take industrial action, we are disappointed with the outcome of this latest ballot as it means there is the potential for further disruption of our students’ education. Our students, and students at other universities, have endured so much, with the pandemic and sector-wide industrial action over the last five years.
In line with our values and core mission as a university, we must do everything possible to protect our students’ education and experience: this is not only morally the right approach, but we also need to meet our regulatory individual degree programme requirements of providing our students with the education they were promised.
While we continue to hope for a nationally-negotiated settlement with UCU, based on a realistic assessment of what is possible for the sector, our approach to further industrial action at Queen Mary will continue to prioritise our students’ education and experience above all other activities at our University. We will continue to ask staff who choose to take strike action or action short of a strike (ASOS) to prioritise all educational activities and deprioritise or stop all other work where needed. This will include all research activities and all non-educational activities. This approach fully respects the right of staff to take industrial action if they wish to do so while limiting the disruption to our students.
Our FAQs page provides further details relating to any possible industrial action, and our approach to protect our students’ education.
I will write to you again when there is more information to share.
Professor Colin Bailey, CBE, FREng, BEng, PhD, CEng, FICE, FIStructE, MIFireEPresident and Principal
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Dear student,
I hope this email finds you well and that you are enjoying the beginning of the new academic year.
I am writing to you today to update you on national industrial action affecting universities across the UK. You may have seen in the press that the trade union University and College Union (UCU) has recently concluded a national ballot and achieved a mandate for industrial action at 150 participating universities across the UK, including Queen Mary.
I understand this is worrying news. However, in the past industrial action has only affected a very small number of disciplinary areas and degree programmes at Queen Mary, and we expect any industrial action called as a result of this mandate to be similarly limited in its impact. In those disciplinary areas and degree programmes that are affected, we have worked with colleagues to protect your education and experience, by enabling colleagues choosing to take part in industrial action to focus solely on their educational activities, and to stop all other work where needed. This means we will ask all colleagues who take part in strike action (again, this will be in a limited number of disciplinary areas) to make up any missed education when they resume work, and anyone taking action short of a strike to undertake their educational activities, and deprioritise or stop all other work where needed.
I will write again when there is more information to share. In the meantime, if you have any questions about industrial action, including what the action is about, have a look at the FAQs, or contact the Student Enquiry Centre or me at principal@qmul.ac.uk.