Marking & Assessment Boycott

[aridapricot]

So how do you think this will pan out this time? Are you taking part? How do you think things will go in your university/department?
My uni is docking 30% pay. Also in my department (where the spirit tends to be "yes we'll do whatever UCU asks us to do but we'll also go out of our way to cause any inconvenience to students") people are already talking about mitigations... 🙄I am not a UCU member and won't be taking part but I also fear that at some point I will be asked to cover colleague's marking or (even worse) redistribute it (given that I'm HoD).

So disheartened my grammar's gone, along with every ounce of enthusiasm for the job. There, not their!

Yes, I’m struggling to see how this is going to be resolved. I just don’t have a sense of the UCU rank and file on the re ballot. But it beggars belief that Jo Grady thinks that a twitter storm the night before talks is the way forward. Or maybe she’s just fiddling as Rome burns.

What happens if the reballot is lost? I assume some boycotters would then do their marking but would they get salary reimbursement? What happens to those whose marking has been done by someone else? It’s a big mess.

Are there any fellow MABBERS out there just feeling really low right now? It's a struggle - this much conflict and uncertainty for so long (let alone the lost pay). I want to say that I've tried to do everything I can to make things better, but not knowing if/when there will be any kind of resolution is exhausting. No pile on please. I'm well aware those not MABBING and admin colleagues are also exhausted and stressed.

Hugs @KittyBurrito . Yes. This entire situation feels intolerable and I feel like our PSS staff (understandably?) hate us, the students hate us, the university management abundantly hate us, and non-MABbing colleagues hate us.

I have vented on this thread before and received nothing but compassion and kindness. I am sure that you won't be piled on. The uncertainty of the situation really feels intolerable and it has dragged on for so long already.

I think all of us just want this over one way or another. I'm trying not to think what I could have done with the money I've lost, the stability it could have brought - trying to mentally write it off.

Thinking of you and everyone else in our position (and those in different positions, still having a really horrible time just now).

Thank you @SchnitzelVonCrummsTum . That was really kind of you.

At the very least, I hope it's forced a conversation about our broken funding model, and how we can't keep limping on like this. My concern is that none of the parliaments/assemblies in the UK seem willing or able to step in.

Hi @KittyBurrito . Certainly no pile-on from me as a non-MABber. It's quite telling how the feeling you describe of everyone hating you is one I can share to an extent - certainly no one is happy with the situation.
Two weeks ago I was ready to throw the towel and resign as HoD - however, I cannot grudge my MABbing colleagues. I know that many if not all of them think MAB is their last resource, I know they didn't personally want me or the professional services staff suffer this stress (and I think that at least some of them would hate it to see us like this), but they think that causing disruption is the only way they can get heard and they know that disruption cannot happen if there aren't people being inconvenienced (in a way, I respect this more than past industrial action attempts I've seen in my department, with colleagues going out of their way to cause any inconvence to students. That just doesn't make sense - losing wages without disruption).
I am quite concerned at this point of what the MAB will do to relationships between colleagues in the long term, but like you I hope that this eventually forces conversations about what it is that we're doing.

Thanks for your understanding @aridapricot. I have performed a similar role to HoD in the past, and have (I think?) pretty good relationships with admin colleagues. I hate what this is doing to them. I also have some (not a lot of) sympathy with some (not all) senior leaders. The economic situation for UK HE really is pretty bad - the unit of resource is shrinking fast. At the same time, we are long past the point of muddling on through - pushing workloads just a bit more, keeping salary costs down just a little longer. The grievances on the table are serious and genuine. I wish we could get to a point where we could have a constructive grown up conversation about how to square the circle between two sets of equally valid facts, rather than who gets to "win". But I guess that's what negotiation is all about - and we don't seem to be at that point yet.

No pile-on from me, either.

I left the UCU earlier this year (a combination of stupid policies over strikes and their TRA madness). I think the "Four Fights" strategy is contradictory & incoherent, I didn't think striking was the most effective form of industrial action for academics, and I don't believe the strikes are achieving anything. So with those opinions, I felt I couldn't remain a UCU member.

But I'm still in solidarity of you all - I think that the rank & file membership have been sacrificed for a group of would-be revolutionaries, who are just middle-class Trots/Sparts. There is no criticism of ordinary UCU embers, and I don't resent what you've all been doing.

When I was an undergrad in the late 1970s/early 1980s, the feminist group I belonged to used to joke that all the Trotskyites and Spartacists on campus were trust fund revolutionaries, who'd all gone to fee-paying schools. Their major 'revolutionary' action was to fight between their factions, and neo-liberalism rolled on ....

I was once told by a Spart, who was ranting about how bad Solidarity was (Lech Walesa in Poland) and how Walesa was acting against the revolutionary workers' state. I see a similar kind of infantile stupidity in factions within the UCU executive.

@EveryWitchWaybutLoose I've not been happy with UCU leadership on several issues too, and looked at the possibility of joining Unison at one point for that reason. But this is the union tasked with negotiating for staff like me, so although I considered leaving, I didn't do it.

I don't want to not be in a union at all. I also get the impression that the UCU's actual negotiators are much better than the leadership might suggest - those working on USS did an excellent job. I hope the people actually in the room with UCEA are just as smart and level-headed.

Honestly, it's a relief talking openly to you all about it. Thank you. I've just been keeping my head down and avoiding campus, but as a result, I think I've been stewing in my own stress a bit. I can't agree with those who think senior leaders are all feckless bastards and won't face the economic difficulties of what's going on. And I find it maddening when I work with (some) senior colleagues who are so fixated on the metrics that they refuse to recognise how exhausted and demoralised their staff are - and have been for years.

I also get the impression that the UCU's actual negotiators are much better than the leadership might suggest - those working on USS did an excellent job.

Indeed. One of them is a former colleague, and we are pretty close to agreement on the UCU leadership.

I feel weird not being in a union, but this most recent industrial action (plus what happened to Prof. Stock & others) has made me think the UCU is not a serious union.

@EveryWitchWaybutLoose are you looking at alternatives or going to take some time out of union work? I'm glad you think the negotiators are also good. That's heartening. I'd rather have seasoned negotiators than all the pink hats, pictures of dogs, and ludicrous statements on Ukraine.

I think it’s grim, wherever you stand. I have, as HoD, taken on extra marking and am very aware of what it is costing my MABBING colleagues whom I like and respect. But I’m not going to stand back without at least trying to get the students their marks. I also worry that the aims of the boycott have not been fully thought through. I hope I am wrong but I think there are going to be a lot of redundancies on the cards. There’s pretty much no part of this boycott I support. I’m no longer in the union, which perhaps makes it easier for me.

I do feel sorry for those who have lost wages through the MAB and agree it’s grim all around. Weirdly enough, having spoken to a few colleagues, both MABbing and not (and avoiding the highly online ones), there seems to be agreement that the UCU leadership has messed this up and that it’s unclear where we are headed next. It’s frustrating that there is literally nothing I can do except wait and see …

@ExUCU I don't know if UCU have messed this one up (although they have certainly messed other things up recently). The impact at my uni has been prodigious. The SLT are feeling pressure like they never have before. Whether that will result in a national pay agreement, I don't know. As you indicate, unis seem to be in very different positions in terms of what they can afford. My uni could afford more, but a local agreement would be problematic in other ways. There are other things that they could do, but haven't so far.

I think there are going to be a lot of redundancies on the cards

Yup. They’ve started already in the Humanities in post-92s. And like others, I have some sympathy for senior management - not in the way they’re docking pay over the MAB but for having to manage under a hostile government and funding model.

The current UCU leadership have NO idea and they are behaving like spoiled trust fund Sparts.

The logical answer to me seems to be to settle pay locally - those that can afford to pay their staff more really should. Those that can't - can't. But then that busts apart the whole collective negotiating system.

Where I work the redundancies have started, they’ve merged colleges, now they’re merging schools. So lots of senior staff going.

I think we’ve discussed this here before, and I’m not sure I have anything very clever to say but the MAB seems to affect the humanities most, which are suffering from declining enrolments, so are in the firing line when it comes to closures and redundancies. The current UCU leadership is strongly antagonistic to a whole range of actors (people with moderate GC views aka most of the British population; the government; employers; anyone right of centre) and led by a humanities graduate who can’t even write a thesis abstract without grammatical errors.

If you spend all your time antagonising people, then you will find it difficult to find a way out of conflict. UCU have focused inwards, on mobilising the membership but for what? The pension dispute seems to be going ok but the four fights are not. I don’t know what the options regarding a potential agreement are but any way out of this stalemate would be welcome.

The impact at my uni has been prodigious. The SLT are feeling pressure like they never have before. Whether that will result in a national pay agreement, I don't know.

Many universities are not being significantly affected by MAB. Why would they move their position, particularly given the deteriorating financial position and reducing value of home student fees? Even those universities that are currently turning a surplus are stressed about how fast inflation is reducing the value of home student income.

Yes agree. I observe MAB (reluctantly) but the pressure on SLT - more middle managers, really - is to get work marked, not to change stance on pay.
At the end of the mandate, or by working their way through more or less acceptable contingencies first, they'll do that. Yes they're stressed. The alternative is more stressful. MAB is far less trouble than finding extra millions to fund pay rises etc.

The logical answer to me seems to be to settle pay locally - those that can afford to pay their staff more really should. Those that can't - can't. But then that busts apart the whole collective negotiating system.

Maybe I am wrong here but I can almost imagine Grady trying to do this and trying to rationalize (with the help of her side) that it's the best thing for everyone. But I doubt most UCU members would have it, and I think even otherwise moderate/centrist/slightly right-of-centre academics would have massive issues with it - it opens the door to a very unequal system like the US in which academic salaries at the same rank can be wildly divergent (by a factor of 4 or 5) depending on institution and discipline.

I have just learned that several of our finalists are intending to put a joint complaint against me through our Student Union. As far as I've been able to ascertain, it concerns things that have mostly been explained to them already (why have they got marks for some courses and not for others, why do some of them have degree classifications and others have graduated with an unclassified degree), still I am finding the animosity (why against me, and not against the senior management for not addressing the causes of MAB?) a bit difficult to swallow.