As many of you saw first in the Vice Chancellor’s blog post (which we responded to here) and more recently on insite, the University has suggested that striking workers reschedule their teaching. It is both this branch and UCU national’s position that our members should not reschedule missed teaching, for the following reasons:
- Rescheduling classes devalues the principle of industrial action undertaken by colleagues in a collective struggle that is still ongoing, despite present cessation of the strike (note that a strike mandate remains live through June 19, pending ratification of the current agreement from USS).
- Rescheduling will necessarily be uneven, given the differing timetables and capacities of modules and staff concerned – hence any rescheduling that does take place exposes some colleagues to the charge of neglect of students, further undermining departmental relations and leading to potential discrimination.
- Rescheduling has significantly different impact depending on module requirements and assessment patterns – for those with exams, there is greater pressure to reschedule in order to cover material that may appear on a paper, while for those modules that are 100% assessed, staff have in many cases been responding to student queries throughout the break as spring deadlines approach; the difference in impact means that some will be responsible for more make-up work than others, regardless of rates of compensation.
- The offer to pay only striking colleagues who teach for rescheduling ignores – and discriminates against – all non-teaching colleagues who have taken strike action, including many academic-related staff; this contravenes the basic principle of union solidarity