果冻影院

鈥淚 wanted you to know that I do support you in the boycott.听I don鈥檛 mind waiting for my grades if it means my lecturers听can afford to live in the same city they work in!鈥澨�- First year IOE student

We want to thank everyone who is following our advice about reporting, MABing, and pledging. We are aware that 果冻影院 is having problems putting in place contingencies for MAB action they cannot predict. The MAB is already having a significant effect, thanks to you, despite management鈥檚 ongoing attempts to stifle participation. Let鈥檚 keep on making it work!

1. Urgent actions

1. Don鈥檛 report your participation in the boycott!听果冻影院 have agreed to a 2 week delay in their deadline for reporting your participation in the MAB (until May 12), while negotiations are ongoing. 果冻影院 UCU鈥檚 position is still that you don鈥檛 need to report participation until the work is actually due.
2. Remember that听refusing to take on marking from boycotting colleagues does not count as joining the boycott. 果冻影院 have now confirmed that no one will suffer pay deductions for refusing to take on the work of colleagues who have joined the boycott. This would constitute additional work and there is no obligation to accept it.
3. Sign up to our Solidarity Pledge scheme:听
   听If you can鈥檛 MAB yourself, or if you think it鈥檚 not strategic for you to do so, then please pledge to support others. If 6 people pledge half a days鈥� pay a week then we can spread the costs so that no one loses more than 5.2 days鈥� pay in total.
4. Join our regular online听Solidari-Teas听to chat about the MAB, ask any questions you might have, and show our support for one another.The next one is on听Friday 05/05 at 4pm - please check your email or contact ucu@ucl.ac.uk for the link.听

2. Local FAQs

Very few of us have taken part in a marking and assessment boycott before, so there are lots of questions that need answering:

Our local 果冻影院 UCU FAQs are now live:听.

You can also see national听. And get in touch with ucu@ucl.ac.uk if you have any other questions.

Please remember that听all of this guidance assumes that 果冻影院 continues with their plan听for a punitive 36.5 days鈥� flat rate pay deductions.听But together we can stop this. 果冻影院 is a national outlier - very few universities have decided to be as aggressive as 果冻影院, and other institutions are already backing down under pressure from staff and saying that there will be no deductions whatsoever (e.g. University of Hertfordshire and Queen Mary). That is why last week 果冻影院 UCU members voted to threaten 果冻影院 with strike action targeted to hit exam boards if they do not reconsider.

All negotiations going forward will include debate about deductions and when missed marking can be returned at the end of the MAB. This means we don鈥檛 always have clear answers right now, but we will be fighting to ensure that deductions are kept to a minimum and that we are given reasonable deadlines for any overdue marking work.

3. Fighting against 果冻影院鈥檚 deductions scheme

The fight against punitive deductions continues. Our negotiators will be meeting with 果冻影院 management again to discuss the proportionality, or rather lack of it, in deductions that do not correspond with actual workload allocations for marking and assessment. In the meantime, here are some ideas for what you can do right now:听

• Organise an听Open Letter to your Head of Department听in support of the boycott and ask them to publicly oppose the deductions scheme.听听available听.
• Sign the听听if you haven't already done so.
• Ask your students to write to the Provost听themselves. (For ideas of what to say here鈥檚 the听letter we wrote to the Provost last week.)

果冻影院 UCU Executive Committee

@ucl_ucu