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).

In the last week or so I've heard two or three passing comments from diffrent people to the effect that it's now a given that the MAB will extend into the summer - is that the feeling in your institutions as well?

I'm doing MAB - 50 per cent reduction. I saved for several months as I knew this was coming. I want to be sure we have tried everything - workload and pay is beyond a joke. Pretty strong Union action here - no exam boards taking place at all. Managers and markers just refusing.

Yes, we’re expecting it to cover our September exam board as well as June, and to continue until the mandate expires at the end of September. There’s no sign of talks, never mind movement on either side. As a HoD I can’t see how some of the marking is ever going to get done. I have people leaving the department for other posts who won’t be completing their marking before they go and it’s such specialised stuff that I can’t see how I can get someone else to mark it.

Yes, I’m of the same view. There appears to be a stalemate so I would expect it to run and run (subject to people’s stomach for the deductions).

I’m not sure though what impact local strikes in response to 100% deductions will have - I think SOAS is the only branch so far to go down that route.

How long will people keep going in a stalemate though. I work adjacent to a university rather than in one but I can see no interest at all in the universities in doing anything to break the stalemate and frankly, at least locally, no interest in the UCU in settling. I could see us still being here in summer of 2024 with students having no assessed work for 12 months plus in some depts. And that highlights another problem , the action in the institution I know off is highly concentrated in a few depts with others not affected at all.

Whilst having sympathy with the lecturers I feel increasingly uncomfortable with the effect on students, especially as this is the same cohort who missed A levels . Perhaps if the universities start being hit by the courts ? Public sympathy levels are also not not helped by the debacle of the congress this weekend.

No, at least one other branch that I know of has done so.

UCU did want to settle. This was quite apparent from Grady's standing-down of the March strike days without even consulting her members, and which arguably put UCU back a country mile in the dispute. She was interested in the fate of the USS. Once she'd made headway on this my impression was it was job done as far as she was concerned - and this of course failed to recognise that those in post-92 and some of the mid-brow universities are not USS members, and their members had taken by far the greatest hits in the disaggregated ballots which they loyally supported.

Those members feel the GS has thrown them under the bus, and rightly too. When members were consulted they felt they'd given up the most and gained the least - if not precisely nothing - as the outcome of this dispute.

This is what happens when you get a divisive GS with their own agenda who apparently has difficulty in discerning the meaning of 'union'.

Because of her own unguarded, unprofessional behaviour she's also just been sued for libel. Members who voted for her have been badly let down having ended up saddled with her.

@SerafinasGoose this is exactly why the four fights was such a terrible strategy it puts members against each other as a settlement on pensions does nothing for many members

Agreed. Even the most basic negotiators know they have to ask for one clear thing. Pay and conditions would have cut it - just. '4 fights' just muddies the waters and makes it far less likely you'll gain headway with any of them.

The USS dispute should have remained an entirely separate dispute.

I’m really annoyed with the strikes/boycotts. It’s unfair on the students who suffered so much due to covid. I have two daughters at university, one whose A levels were cancelled and the other whose GCSEs were cancelled. They have no control over this but are being penalised. Totally unfair.

So you don't believe in the right to strike @RubyMurry22 ?

In this case the strikes don’t seem to be affecting the employer, just the students.

So are we, the union members.

We are 'striked out'. The dispute has been rumbling on for years. I believe we're now well into sunk costs fallacy. We don't WANT to be doing this. Many of us can't afford to be doing it, either. But the sector cannot continue free-falling the way it's currently doing. Something has to give. Until action commenced, the 'something' was us, the teaching staff who are the only ones ever invested in outcomes for students in the first place.

Senior management couldn't give a monkey's. If you're disillusioned with ongoing action after all this time, do write to your children's university's vice chancellor, setting out the unfairness on students and the need to reach a resolution. The employers could end this tomorrow. They are the ones choosing to prolong it.

The future of UK HE will not benefit if the union, after all this time, simply rolls over and capitulates. As those who work in this sector recognise all too clearly, we cannot afford to lose this dispute.

I’m not sure that the employers could end this overnight . A pay settlement affordable by some of the richer older institutions would bankrupt some of the post 1992s . The famous £44m of reserves are a) mostly held by a few older universities and b) not cash but mostly buildings how many institutions will choose to close a library to fund this. Plus people forget that many are deeply in hoc to the private equity funders. It’s a total mess . The pensions problem can only be solved on a sector wide basis so cannot be solved by each university.

I am not in anyway defending the VCs , I think their conduct has been despicable and irresponsible and many of the problems can be laid directly at the door of greedy and vain governing bodies, but the solution is not simple. And it certainly isn’t the fault of the students, who have largely supported the staff but who will carry the effects of this for the whole of their working lives due to the mess which is student finance and who seem to be on a macro level largely ignored by both sides.

This is the problem when you have a national wage scale implemented by individual institutions. The sector can only pay as much as the weakest institution can afford. UCU don’t seem to appreciate this. This is why I think that movement on pay won’t happen (or at least won’t happen to the extent that makes UCU prepared to settle).

One solution of course is to allow wealthier institutions to set their own pay scales although that wouldn’t be popular.

My university is not approving annual leave requests from people on MAB since leave cannot be granted during exams and assessment period, and it is understood that, since there is still marking outstanding, the assessment period hasn't ended. Are your universities doing the same? It seems almost like a 'dirty war' kind of strategy to me, denying leave to people who will likely be overworked as it is.

Well, that is interesting. I applied for leave in June a couple of weeks ago and it's still not been approved. I'm not MABbing but I wonder if that's why - I suppose I could be being lined up to be asked to mark.

Occam's razor says it's just administrative incompetence though.

@aridapricot That's astonishing! What bullies. Good luck getting anyone to glad hand applicants at weekend open days, or go the extra mile in an admin role after that. <Looks pointedly at very very empty goodwill-ometer>

Oh wow @aridapricot That's really shocking. I'm not sure if they're doing this at my university, I haven't requested any leave for the summer yet.

We have exam boards next week which will be interesting to witness. There's a lot of grumbling still about the 50% wage deduction - I think there's a local strike being planned to protest against the wage deduction.

I see Durham and QUB have announced that students will not be allowed to progress to the next year . How is that going to work , do they have any idea of how ridiculous and impractical this is . How will the finance both for the universities and the students ?

Our accrediting body have made it clear that no concessions can be made on progression or classification. That overrides anything the university has in place; it’s essential that our degrees are accredited. Not that we have any staff taking part in the boycott.

I'm not MABbing (no longer a UCU member), but got the most aggressive email telling me they were going to dock 50% of my salary, because my marking was incomplete.

However, it wasn't. Apparently because I didn't respond to the Dean's email asking me if I was on the MAB, they assumed I hadn't done my marking.

I am so pissed off. Very angry. I have sent feedback ...

There is some outrageous, bullying behaviour surrounding this action.

A number of colleagues in my own and other departments have personally been hounded about the release of marks and feedback. This was occurring days before the deadlines for return to students whereas normally we are left alone to get on with it.

UCU branch had to contact those departments to warn that this behaviour was illegal, and threatened to escalate it to regional if they did not back off.

It's heartbreaking, the mess that has been made of the UK's once fine system of education. I'm becoming increasingly ashamed to be associated with it.

Very strong and consistent action across my college - I am surprised to be honest. It's such a big hit financially and the UCU have been all over the shop recently. But so many colleagues are just at the, "Fuck this, this is unacceptable" point. It's quite heartening really. Only about 10 per cent of papers have been returned and our college is big.