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).

Nearly all my department are participating. Not enthusiastically, and certainly not to "shirk marking," but out of a conviction that it's probably the only tool we have as staff to put pressure on UCEA for a fair pay settlement. Let's not forget we've not had a pay increase in line with inflation since 2010. I guess a lot of you would call me a UCU zealot, given the discussion above, but I don't think of myself that way! If there was another route to securing fair pay in HE, I'd be taking it - 50% deductions are going to put me under severe financial pressure. But I don't see any other way to stop the squeeze on wages (and increase in workloads) year after year after year.

Does anyone who’s in UCU know whether there are 4F negotiations planned or in progress? I just wonder to what end are people sacrificing pay in the MAB if UCEA are not in further discussions with UCU. Is the plan to hang on until the mandate expires with the hope that at some point the employers will come back to the table?

I’m feeling like collateral damage today as a colleague’s refused to arrange a viva as part of the MAB, potentially leaving the student stuck until the MAB is called off.

We got an e-mail from the university the other day that talks are not happening and there are also none planned.

The ball is in UCEA's court. UCU have consistently said they're ready to talk. After all the negative media coverage this week, especially from students, who're often clear they support staff and want to see management come back to the table, we might see progress? Let's hope so and no need to extend the mandate or take any more action.

E-mail today from my university on MAB, most of it the usual stuff, we'll work hard so that student impact will be minimized, no talks currently happening at the national level, etc. etc. However, what struck me is that they say the university is engaging in talks with UCU at the local level. I wonder if this will come to a similar situation as last year, when a marking boycott was announced, then individual UCU branches reached individual agreements with their university, then the whole thing silently petered out before it had much impact if any at all?

I think that's UCEA and management's hope. But this year is a bit different, with the boycott happening at more institutions, and announced early enough to catch the Scottish Universities. In any case, they cannot offer anything meaningful on pay at the local level. It beggars belief all the things that senior leadership teams are doing just to avoid coming back to the table and offering staff a fair pay deal (when we think about the fact we've had below-inflation offers for 14 years.) What has been amazing to see is the level of student support. There's been coverage of the boycott at Uni of Edinburgh in almost every paper and on BBC and every time, students say they don't blame staff but blame university management. They've even set up a petition. It's giving me hope about the dispute, but also the world!
Petition removed by MNHQ. Please post petitions on the correct board

@whatsofunnyaboutpeaceloveandunderstanding I'm not being goady at all. But I wonder where you're seeing student support? Are you seeing this in real life?

I'm seeing a small number of very vocal students (like those at Edinburgh) who are, through social media, positioning themselves as speaking for the whole student body. But my personal interactions with students are telling a very different story - I've found most to be ambivalent if they think they'll still get a 2:1 albeit with marks missing, or to be unsupportive of the MAB after years of pointless strikes and Covid.

A few students have said that they don't feel comfortable voicing this lack of support for the MAB to the more hard-line UCU colleagues in my department. I think students are saying "the right things" (i.e. support for MAB) to particular colleagues which is giving a slightly warped view of how much student support there actually is.

It's true that my students know I'm in the union, so they're not likely to say they don't care about staff pay, only their degree qualification, to me. But look at that student petition, all the students quoted in the press, and the most recent article in the Edinburgh Tab... all students supporting staff . None of them are my students (ie taught by me). And Edinburgh students are not known for being a particularly radical bunch I don't think. For sure it's impossible to claim it's the majority of students who're in support, and maybe I'm being a bit of a wishful thinker, seeing what I want to see, but I think it's a considerable number and very heartening.

I agree with KStockHero, I think there are a few pro-MAB (and, dare I say it, UCU-linked) students who are being featured repeatedly and across various forms of media. A lot of what they are saying seems to be parroted from the UCU playbook. I am not so sure that they speak for all students. My experience is that students don't particularly care about academics, but about themselves. To them, we are people with degrees and jobs - what is there to pity when they might have neither? Education has become much more instrumental and transactional over the last two decades and this is the fruit of those changes.

This is interesting - a letter from UCEA saying that UCU have until tomorrow to call off the MAB or the terms of reference for the non-pay negotiations will lapse. Also reiterates that UCEA is not budging on pay.

https://www.ucu.org.uk/media/13796/UCEALetterMAB/pdf/UCEALetterMAB.pdf

@whatsofunnyaboutpeaceloveandunderstanding But you're kind of proving my point here by drawing out those examples - that there's some very vocal students featured in the media and being very visible on social media who create a sense that they speak for the whole student body.

But this Edinburgh Tab article doesn't give specific numbers of students that support the MAB, it only says that their Instagram account has been 'inundated' with responses to posts about the MAB.

Edinburgh has 45,000 students. Assuming that 450 students messaged The Tab to express their support for the MAB (which is a really high estimate), that's only 1% of students actively, vocally supporting the MAB. But some of these students are being plucked as mouthpieces for the student body which is creating a full sense of just how much students are invested in the action.

I'm not sure which petition you're talking about specifically but there's a currently active one from UCL students union which has 174 signatures. There are 43,800 at UCL. So 0.4% of students.

I think a lot of UCU people have a rose-tinted idea of students as radical, politically engaged and fighting for justice. There are a small number that are like this and they're the ones that appear in the media in support of UCU action. Most, though, like @ghislaine said, are pretty ambivalent about us and more focused on themselves. And rightly so.

**false sense

I'm mainly seeing negative press: editorials in the newspapers, radio reports, eg there was an Edinburgh University student interviewed on Radio 4 last week railing against the MAB for the effect it was having on him. And see the ongoing thread in Mumsnet Higher Education board. To say MAB is unpopular among parents would be an understatement.

I've just spotted this on Twitter.

What are your thoughts?

@Impostersyndrome Can you link me to the thread in Higher Education, please? I can't seem to find it. I'd be really interested to see what's being said there. Thank you.

I think that if my institution wasn't deducting wages for MAB then I would simply refuse to mark anything or even re-distribute marking as I don't think they could deduce anything from me? I also find it quite amusing that woke-type members of UCU are decrying the loss of standards (if assignments aren't properly marked by the lecturers who set them), when earlier this week there were a number of threads (after an article in THE I think) basically claiming that in the past students could spend 6 hours a day reading and read a novel a week, now they cannot because they have PT jobs so what you do is you simply cut down th amount of reading they're supposed to do but magically that's the same and the same learning is still being accomplished and no standards are dropping, at all.

There you go, @KStockHERO (great name): F inalienable year students affected by marking boycott www.mumsnet.com/Talk/higher_education/4804332-f-inalienable-year-students-affected-by-marking-boycott

Re: But you're kind of proving my point here by drawing out those examples

Yes I was conceding that I'm maybe guilty of wishful thinking. I guess I think it's amazing when just one student is in the position of not getting work marked and still supports staff, so to hear that there's hundreds (I think upwards of 500 have signed the SettletheDisputes petition in Edinburgh, same in Cambridge, not sure about elsewhere) is incredible. It's heartening to see that solidarity and understanding from some students. But, I agree, am sure it's not the majority.

Thank you @Impostersyndrome

I agree with you @aridapricot I think non-UCU people would get into a bit of bother if we refused to mark because it's not part of a sanctioned industrial action. But I sure as hell wouldn't be busting a gut to get all my marking done on time and to a decent standard if others were just abdicating that responsibility but still getting 100% pay.
Surely the point of industrial action is to say "We feel so strongly about this that we're willing to lose pay". But the message is now "We feel strongly about this so we've downed tools but please pay us full wages even though we're not doing our full jobs". What?!

I also couldn't agree more about standards. As usual, hypocrisy and contradictions from the UCU he/hims

@KStockHERO here's another recent thread on the subject:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/higher_education/4795043-uni-of-edinburgh-not-marking-dissertationsfinal-pieces-of-work-anyone-elses-dc-affected?page=1

Thanks @HowManySunflowers This thread went absolutely bonkers.

I shall save the one you just linked for tomorrow when I've had a strong coffee 😅

Would you think, I'm not marking [eight essays] but please don't deduct ten days' pay would be a defensible position though? I don't know anyone arguing for no deductions. As for others having to do the work, nobody wants that and I hope union / affinity / local management can object on their behalf.

I understand that you don't have to be a union member to participate in a legal union dispute with your employer. So I am fairly sure people could refuse to mark as action short of a strike.

I appreciate your anger with the union on GC grounds. I can only say that pronouns in signatures is mostly a management phenomenon where I work, and most union members don't engage with UCU social media - it's trivial, inaccessible, and irritating. We get information from our branch. Our branch doesn't do wider politics. Strikers / boycotters here don't tend to align with UCU politics, and they're not asking to get their marking done for them. Your characterisation of strikers is a long way from my experience. But that's not too surprising - it's a broad and diverse sector.

@Looksgood I get your point. But, as you said, its a big and diverse sector. People in my department are likely to have around 200-300 essays and 14 dissertations to mark at the moment. Marking takes up about 90% of time this month. So big deductions for not doing that work are warranted. But HR can't tailor deductions for individual staff workloads so blanket deduction amounts are applied. Some (like you) will be shafted by this. Others (like me) would come out quite well.

I think our experience of UCU people is very different. My university's branch secretary is in my department and is fully bought into UCU trans ideology. He even tweeted in support of Isla Bryson [sic] being sent to a female prison. Most UCU members in my department follow suit and make it a hostile place for GC women. And they behave this way because they have their unions backing to behave like this.

I get that some branches don't buy I to wider UCU politics and ideologies but they're still aligned to UCU and people are still paying money to and organisation that supports bullying women out of their jobs for the belief that sex is real, binary and immutable.

In my university they are doing it on a case by case basis - the idea being that they deduct 100% of your pay for the time you would have spent marking. Sounds like this is unusual though.

Hi Academics!

Concerend about the HE sector? MNHQ plan to interview Gillian Keegan. Board dominated by school Qs so far:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/mumsnet_live_events/4811568-got-a-question-for-the-secretary-of-state-for-education-gillian-keegan-mp?page=2&reply=126360812