Email template: stave off local industrial action
Below, there is a template that students can use to contact Senior Management to ask them to stop their destructive policy which is causing a local strike.
QMUL are unique in the UK in implementing a punitive 100% deduction policy for those on Action Short of Strike (ASOS; i.e.: working to contract) – other universities, such as Leeds have the policy but haven’t implemented it yet. The policy means that those who don’t make up classes that fell on strike days will be deducted 100% of their wages for the days after strike days, when they are back at work – without pay... QMUL’s management has confirmed they will deduct 26 days of pay for 6 days of strike in April if teaching is not made up by the end of this month. This has caused untold reputational damage to QMUL – see, for instance: the Observer, and the Evening Standard.
Management have tried to monitor staff who have missed teaching through the ‘missed education reporting tool’. It claims that this is to help students. It is not. That data gathering is used by management to tell the Office for Students they have tried to mitigate the impact of strike action, and therefore do not have to issue refunds. For further info and a template specifically about the ‘Snitch Forms’, click here.
This policy hurts students as well as staff. Rescheduling is not possible in reality as there simply isn't enough space or time. It also demonstrates that management doesn't know QMUL students, many of whom have work and care responsibilities and cannot accommodate extra classes at the last minute. Moreover, students need the end of term to complete assessments or prepare for exams, not catch up on lectures. They instead need their teachers to support them in their assessment. In short, rescheduling is not practical, it is not fair to staff and it is not in the interests of our students. It is just to intimidate.
Staff cannot let this go unchallenged (the legality is questionable and it will set a dangerous precedent that would undermine the right to strike for all workers across the UK). They are challenging this through political routes (e.g.: the Deputy Leader of Labour spoke out against it), legal routes, and a press route (overview of recent articles). They are also taking further strike action from 3th April-14 April should Senior Management not withdraw the threat of deductions. Staff do not want to take these, but management does not seem to listen without that threat.
Students have an important part to play in this. Discontent among students registers highly on the factors executives and governing bodies have to bear in mind. Students can demand them to put an end to more disruption by ending the destructive and disproportionate deductions policy.
Below is a template which you can adapt to your own needs and interests. It may, for instance, be that you want to add something you feel very strongly about or to personalise the text with your own experiences.
It pays off to write quickly: local action can start as soon as 3 April.
Dear members of the Senior Executive Team,
I am writing to you as a student of Queen Mary University of London. I am asking you to use the considerable influence at your disposal to put an end to the damaging policy of 100% deductions for not ‘making up’ teaching withdrawn as part of legal industrial action, and to protect the rest of my teaching term.
Management’s communication purports to minimise disruption to students but these are in fact having the opposite effect.
QMUL is unique in implementing a policy of deducting 100% of wages for every day staff refuse to ‘make up’ lost teaching. This demand would undermine their own withdrawal of labour, as they haven’t been paid for that strike day in the first place. This is a failed policy.
Management knows that staff cannot let these punitive deductions stand, as accepting this policy will set a dangerous precedent and undermine the right to strike for workers across the UK – as outlined by a Human Rights Law academic in this blogpost and this longer article in the prestigious OUP journal. Management knows that it is impossible to ‘make up’ teaching: there is neither room nor time to do so. Management knows full well that the way to challenge these deductions is more local strike action, as that is what happened in 2022, and that is what they have been notified of local strike days.
That you have let a failed and detrimental policy stand and risk further disruption at QMUL, and further reputational damage is an indictment of how you treat students and staff. It is your job to lead this university to the best of your ability; you are being paid salaries of six figures for the responsibility this implies. This policy, the legal and political battles that it inspires, the reputational damage it causes, and the disruption to students, they’re all your responsibility.
I urge you, therefore, to do the right thing and put an end to this policy.
Yours sincerely,
[name]