Can I strike for part of the time?

[Stucknow1980]

My union is holding strike action for 5 weeks. For reasons that I won’t go into, I can’t strike for the full time. Can I strike for part of the time? Eg 1 day a week? Is this legal?

But as I said earlier in the thread, most of the union officials didn’t go on strike that time, it was too long and unlikely to succeed.

If you go on strike check regarding your pension contributions. My DH went on strike for 2 weeks in the 1980's and he didn't realise that his state pension would be lower than mine. It was too late to contribute to catch up when he found out.

UCU I'd think. At least there's a 5 week strike coming where I work by UCU members.

At our institution, you declare for particular days - not half days - so you can go on and off strike. But it gets really complicated as if you aren't striking you can be asked to cover work for other colleagues so you'll want to check with your union rep and your HR department to see how this works in your area.

Ah, UCU.

Is the strike period five weeks, with occasional strikes during that time? That has happened before with UCU, to prevent particular groups of students being more impacted than others. If that is the case you will probably be docked pay on the days you strike (depending on the institution's rules) but paid for the ones you work. You won't, therefore, lose five weeks' pay.

Five weeks will take the industrial action to the point where necessary tasks will not happen. A few days will just mean that staff will end up covering for the things they didn't do when they were on strike, so the university won't suffer at all - in fact it will win by not having to pay staff for things that got done anyway.

Remember that if you have a occupational pension then the time you are on strike wont be counted towards reckonable service.

Is that meant to put the OP off striking, or reminding her that it is because of unions that occupational pensions exist?

Not put her off, I have striked many times myself, but if she is struggling with money it is something to note. Loads of people complained to us about this when they came to retire.