Industrial action

What is action short of a strike?

• Action short of a strike (ASOS) is a form of industrial action where employees continue to work but may withdraw certain activities.
• During action short of a strike, employees will typically perform their contracted duties but will not engage in work beyond their contracted hours or responsibilities.

What are the issues under dispute and can the university resolve them?

• UCU are carrying out action short of a strike over university proposals to reshape and resize the institution in response to increasing financial pressures impacting the sector.
• In particular, they are challenging:
  • • A proposal to replace our current five-faculty, 26-school structure with three colleges and 10 schools 
    • The resulting centralisation of Administrative, Professional and Managerial (APM) Services
    • The university’s inability to completely rule out compulsory redundancies as part of these changes
• The university is doing everything it can to minimise impact on staff and students. The truth is that combination of rising operational costs and falling student numbers means that we simply cannot afford to operate in the same way we have in the past, and changes need to be made. Trade union colleagues have stated that cuts are a choice and that they are avoidable, but this does not recognise the reality of the financial position universities currently face. 
• However, the university has committed to no compulsory redundancies prior to 31 October 2026.

How might picket lines affect me?

• Picketing is where staff taking part in industrial action gather outside their place of work in order to seek to persuade others not to work. Picketing is only allowed at or near entrances to and exits from the picket's own place of work.  
• Pickets can request permission to explain their dispute to those entering or leaving the workplace - including students - however, these activities must be carried out peacefully at all times. 
• Pickets do not have the right stop any person crossing the picket line; force a person to listen to them; stop any vehicle; assault, threaten, intimidate, abuse, harass or defame anyone; cause alarm or distress; or obstruct any path, road, entrance or exit. 
• While picketing is not a standard element of action short of a strike, UCU have notified us of their intention to commit to rallies on campus on Monday 24 and Tuesday 25 November 2025.

What happens to teaching and learning during industrial action?

• Please assume that teaching and learning activities are going ahead, including the supervision of projects and dissertations. You should attend as planned unless you hear otherwise from your lecturer or school or department. Similarly, you should continue to submit assignments to existing deadlines. 
• Schools and departments will explore options to reschedule lost learning wherever possible, provide catch-up resources through Moodle and extend deadlines where helpful. Please keep in touch with your school or department for information specific to your circumstances. 
• Please note that unless a class has been disrupted, normal attendance monitoring will take place. It is worth remembering that the student Attendance Policy means you must attend all activities to pursue your studies required by your School.

How will I know if my seminar, lecture or other session is disrupted by industrial action?

• Where sessions are likely to experience disruption, your school or department will endeavour to give you advance notice where at all possible. However, staff do not have to inform the university in advance that they intend to take industrial action, so this might not be possible in every case. 
• Should a member of staff not arrive for a teaching session at its planned start time, you should wait for a few minutes to be sure that your lecturer is not late before leaving the room.

What should I do if my session is disrupted by industrial action?

• Please accept our apologies if this does occur. Our libraries, computer rooms, and other learning environments and services will be available throughout the period to enable you to continue your studies and independent learning. 
• Schools and departments are exploring options to reschedule lost sessions where possible, provide catch-up resources through Moodle and extend deadlines where helpful. Please keep in touch with your school or department for information specific to your circumstances.
• If your scheduled learning is disrupted by industrial action, you can use this form to let us know.

If my sessions are disrupted and not rescheduled, how can I be assessed on those topics in examinations or assessments? 

• For your assessments and exams, we will ensure that you are not disadvantaged if you have missed any learning due to the strikes, while of course maintaining the highest standards. 
• Your school or department will communicate with you about any changes to assessments as a result of missed teaching. 
• Importantly, we will maintain our quality and standards at all times, with full regard to the Quality Assurance Agency and our Quality Manual, so that you can be assured that your exams assessments will be as robust as they always are.

What if my viva, oral examination or presentation is disrupted?

• Should oral examinations, assessments and vivas coincide with the industrial action they will be rescheduled at the earliest opportunity.

Will we be entitled to an extension for dissertations or other submission of work due to the industrial action?

• You should assume that any deadlines set for submitting work, including dissertations, still apply as normal. Your Schools will aim to maintain assessment deadlines, but also look at where revised deadlines might be helpful for you. 
• Unless you have been told of a change to a specific submission date, the stated deadline will stand, and you will not be automatically entitled to an extension if the submission or dissertation deadline falls within the period of industrial action. 
• If the industrial action has a specific detrimental impact on you personally, you might be able to make a request for Extenuating Circumstances, which supports students with exceptional, unforeseeable, short-term circumstances which affect their ability to study or take assessments.

How will the strikes affect my Visa in terms of my attendance record?

• Your student visa conditions are not affected by industrial action. Unless you are specifically advised that a session has been disrupted, you should attend as normal, and the normal processes for attendance monitoring will apply to sessions which are not disrupted. 
• If a session is disrupted due to industrial action, this will be recorded by the University as a cancelled session, and this will not have a detrimental impact on your attendance record for the purposes of your student visa.

As an international student, do I still need to ask for permission if I want to return to my home country during the period of industrial action? What are the implications for my visa?

• The industrial action does not change the normal requirements for compliance in terms of your student visa. You should continue to ensure that absence in the usual way, as detailed in the UKVI academic engagement Code of Practice.

Can I request compensation or a refund of fees?

• The University remains open throughout strike action. Libraries, computer rooms, and services will be available to enable students to continue studies and independent learning. 
• Student fees cover a very wide range of services, not just tuition, and our focus remains on addressing any disruption where it occurs, rather than providing financial recompense. 
• We do our best to mitigate the impact of strike action on your teaching and assessment as much as possible. If we can't do that, we will consider whether compensation is appropriate, but we will only do that after any strike action has concluded and we've had an opportunity to evaluate what the impact has been. 
• Of course, if students are demonstrably affected by strike action, a complaint can be raised through the recognised Student Complaints Policy - and students can also contact the Students' Union Advice Centre for advice - with evidence in support of the complaint.

Why do you deduct salary from staff who take strike action, and what will you do with it?

• It is standard employment practice not to pay staff who are on strike for the time they are not working.
• During periods of industrial action, the University will reinvest the money not paid to striking staff to support students who are affected by strikes and the cost-of-living crisis.