University and College Union announces details of strike action at Cardiff University

Martin Shipton

The University and College Union has announced details of strikes and other forms of industrial action aimed at forcing Cardiff University bosses to reconsider their “cruel and unnecessary” job cuts and rule out compulsory redundancies.

More than 1,300 members of the university’s academic staff remain “in scope” for redundancy as part of cuts proposals originally announced on January 28.

UCU is calling for no compulsory redundancies and for the university to use some of the hundreds of millions of pounds in its reserves to soften the impact of the cuts.

In a statutory ballot, 83% of Cardiff UCU members’ votes backed strike action, and 86% backed action short of a strike up to and including a marking and assessment boycott. Some 64% of members voted, giving the union a mandate which far exceeds the legal 50% threshold for industrial action. The vote represents the biggest mandate in the branch’s history, and the union hopes that the University’s Executive Board will meet staff demands before any action begins.

Since winning the mandate, union members have considered their options and voted for a hard-hitting plan of action beginning with a one-day strike on May 1 (international workers’ day). If staff demands are not met by this point, an indefinite assessment boycott will come into effect from May 6, as well as seven further strike days in May and June.

Graduation ceremonies

Cardiff University is currently inviting students graduating this summer (“graduands”) to graduation ceremonies which may be disrupted by the boycott of assessment work. Senior managers have been warned that unless they agree to staff demands “a summer of chaos” will ensue that will add to the reputational damage their controversial cuts plans have already caused.

A UCU spokesperson said: “As always, union members are reluctant to engage in industrial action because of the impact it has on students. They are even more averse to using the nuclear option of an assessment boycott. But the scale and depth of the cuts, along with management’s continued refusal to take compulsory redundancies off the table, means that staff feel the university is leaving them no choice but to act.”

An assessment boycott, which is deemed a form of “action short of a strike” involves carrying out most of one’s professional duties but refusing to do all, or some, tasks that relate to marking and assessing student work (such as setting exams, marking, and administering assessment for exam boards so that students can progress to the next stage of their studies or, in the case of final year students, graduate at all).

Disruption

The last time UCU members at Cardiff used this disruptive form of industrial action was in 2023, as part of a UK-wide campaign about pay and conditions. Senior managers at the University privately acknowledged that the severe disruption caused by this assessment boycott was comparable to that caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.

In retaliation for participation in the assessment boycott, university bosses docked 50-100% of staff pay, despite staff still performing all other parts of their jobs. Some students were invited by the university to graduate without knowing their degree classifications, or even if they’d passed. Even for many of those who did get their grades, the university lowered academic assessment standards so thoroughly that they were accused of letting students graduate with “bargain basement degrees.”

The union indicated that even at this early stage of planning 160% more members with marking duties have agreed to take part in an assessment boycott this time around. Hundreds are already pledging to donate a percentage of their wages to a local solidarity fund to support those hit by any punitive wage deductions and even more have agreed not to cover work for those engaging in the boycott. The UCU nationally has also confirmed that Cardiff members will be able to access its national strike fund for financial support.

The two other campus unions, Unite and Unison, have also agreed to instruct their members (mainly professional services support staff) not to cover work for UCU members engaging in industrial action.

‘Reluctant’

Cardiff University UCU branch president Dr Joey Whitfield said: “As university staff our members routinely go above and beyond to give our students the kind of excellent education they deserve. We are incredibly reluctant to take part in any form of industrial action, let alone a marking and assessment boycott. But the university is leaving us no choice after imposing these cruel and unnecessary cuts. Our message to the University Executive Board is clear: there is an alternative to this summer of chaos and there is still plenty of time to avoid this kind of disruption.

“Our demand is quite modest and reasonable, and we want to negotiate. We could be asking for a lot more, but we aren’t. As our independent financial analysis has shown from the start, compulsory redundancies are not needed. As we’ve shown with our detailed and evidence-based set of alternative proposals for improving the university’s finances, there are ways out of this mess which protect the university and do not involve destroying hundreds of our members’ lives.”

So far Cardiff UCU has announced the following industrial action this summer:

A Marking and Assessment Boycott to begin on May 6. The exact form this will take is not yet decided by members in the branch. Union members have the power to withhold all labour relating marking and assessment, and its administration, for all Cardiff University students at all levels (including undergraduate, postgraduate taught, and PhD). They also have the ability to tailor the action to areas where it will be most impactful (for instance, only in relation to third year undergraduates, whose summer graduations could be disrupted without getting their grades);

“All-out” strike days on: May 1; May 6 (the final day of the University’s consultation process over redundancies and its restructuring proposals); June 9 (the day of a health and safety audit at the university, with protests planned around the effects of the restructuring and workloads on staff mental and physical health; evening and weekend work for recruitment (including during Open Days); and June 23-27(a week in which many university exam boards are held); and Action Short of a Strike from May 6 to include “working to contract” and not working unpaid extra hours (many staff routinely work evenings and weekends at Cardiff University); refusing to mitigate the marking and assessment boycott in any way; and refusal to engage in any goodwill duties. It could also include refusing more research or administrative duties.

In addition to these forms of agreed action, and depending on management’s response to UCU’s demands, it is possible that staff could escalate strike action to include other dates which would strategically disrupt other university business including student graduation ceremonies.