Strikes, ASOS and members on casualised
contracts
November 2022
This guidance looks at how our members who are precariously employed can support the
current industrial action in HE, but it is aimed at all members and branch activists.
UCU is currently engaged in two disputes, one which is known as the Four Fights dispute
and the other on pensions.
The Four Fights dispute is in support of our claim for a fair pay rise and action to tackle
casualisation, excessive workloads and inequality in the workplace.
The pension’s dispute involves those employers who offer USS as the pension for academic
and academic related staff (broadly speaking the old or pre-92 universities).
Our industrial action is made up of both actin short of a strike (ASOS) and strike action.
Up to date details about how and when these actions are being applied can be found on
our website at: https://www.ucu.org.uk/rising
Taking strike action
Striking means not doing any work on the strike days that we have specified as a union.
This includes not engaging in any activity which is part of your work such as teaching,
administration, meetings, emails related to work, marking, research or conferences.
While there are many challenges in taking strike action, it is a clear show of solidarity with
colleagues that puts pressure on the employers to try and seek a solution to the disputes.
Research staff often feel that taking strike action is ineffective as they are funded by fixed-
term external funding for specific projects, which they will still feel the pressure to
complete within the fixed period of the grant.
Casually employed staff on low and erratic wages may also find it difficult to take action,
not only because of the lost pay (which may amount to a substantial part of their weekly /
monthly income, depending on how strike days fall) but also for fear that they will not be
offered work in the future.
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However, a core part of our dispute is fighting the casualisation that leaves our members
in these insidious and precarious positions. Taking no action will allow the situation to
deteriorate even further.
Every member of the union who decides not to participate in strike action weakens our
position and undermines the action being taking by their colleagues.
Strike pay
The criteria for accessing UCU's national fighting fund and the level of payment are
determined and authorised by the elected UK officers. We will announce the arrangements
once those decisions have been made by the elected UK officers.
If strike pay is agreed, while most members will be asked to show evidence of deductions
arising from strike action on their pay slips as evidence of loss, other forms of evidence will
be able to be submitted by those who are employed on a casual contract and have had
work cancelled as a result of their strike action.
In the past, many branches also operated hardship funds for members losing pay as a
result of the strike action. Please contact your local branch to ask if they have such a fund
available and the criteria for accessing the funds.
Action Short of a Strike (ASOS)
While a strike is a concerted stoppage of work, 'action short of a strike' (ASOS) is normally
action which affects only certain aspects of your work.
Members in these disputes were balloted on their willingness to engage in a range of
ASOS:
working to contract
not covering for absent colleagues
removing uploaded materials related to, and/or not sharing materials related to,
lectures or classes that will be or have been cancelled as a result of strike action
not rescheduling lectures or classes cancelled due to strike action
not undertaking any voluntary activities; and
a marking and assessment boycott.
From 23 November we have activated all forms of ASOS except a marking and assessment
boycott. In NI ASOS (except a marking and assessment boycott) commended on 18
November. Therefore, from 23 November (18 November in NI) every member in every
branch involved in either dispute, should be observing the ASOS we have called.
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Our ASOS also includes
not rescheduling lectures or classes cancelled due to strike action
not volunteering for additional work
not covering for other people’s work.
This is particularly powerful in showing the huge amount of unpaid work that is routinely
carried out by staff on casualised contracts.
Hourly paid staff especially need to make clear to students what they are paid for and the
rates at which they are expected to work. For example, staff could tell students they are
paid to mark e.g. 4-5 assignments in an hour, and that they normally spend more time on
it, but because they are in dispute and taking ASOS they are providing only the amount of
feedback/marking possible within the allocated time.
Research staff face some unique challenges. Many research-only staff are concerned that
ASOS does not directly impact the employer, particularly for externally-funded projects.
Additionally, research deliverables are often fixed, and seen as or made to be the
responsibility of individual researchers. However, many grants have allocated hours which
can serve as a basis for ASOS.
Research-only staff can increase pressure on employers by publicising their participation in
ASOS to colleagues and partners (including external funders/stakeholders) and
campaigning publicly.
Collectivising your ASOS actions is important and ideas on how that can be done are set
out in the section for branches / activists below. However, if you other ideas, talk to
colleagues and your branch – the more input staff on casualised contracts have, the more
effective the action will be.
PGR guide to industrial action
PGRs play an important part in this industrial action and your involvement is crucial in
order to cause the greatest disruption possible to employers. You can take legally part in
industrial action (striking or ASOS) for research, teaching, and other work that you do
outside of being PGRs (i.e. as graduate teaching assistants, research assistants, or
professional services at or above grade 6) which you are contracted to do as a worker /
employee. In order to maximise the role that you can play in our industrial action, you
should therefore ensure that you are on the correct membership, and if you have any
questions about your employment status you should ask UCU members in your branch.
A full guide to the role PGRs can play in the industrial action can be found at:
https://www.ucu.org.uk/media/12260/Postgraduate-researcher-guide-to-
strikes/pdf/ucu_PGRs_strikes_guide_Dec21.pdf
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Supporting colleagues on casualised contracts
Those members whose positions are relatively privileged should be encouraged and
supported to provide active solidarity and support to colleagues who experience barriers to
progression and face greater levels of precarity.
When talking about the action and how to implement ASOS locally, make sure you include
colleagues on casualised contracts.
Talk openly about the purpose of ASOS and strike activity - to challenge excess workload
and poor working conditions, and to underline that universities should be hiring and
properly paying staff for their work. Securely employed colleagues in particular should be
highlighting and challenging casualisation and issues with work conditions in meetings with
students, managers, and other colleagues, making excessive workloads, endemic
casualisation and poor conditions visible. The burden of speaking up about casualisation
should not be on casualised colleagues. Colleagues could also talk openly about union
membership and help organise within departments.
Use your position to oppose research funding proposals to external funders that cannot be
achieved through contracted hours.
Use you contacts and influence with external stakeholders and funders to provide more
visible support for industrial action, the benefits of research, or public funding.
ARPS staff with responsibility for research administration are perhaps usefully placed to
help communicate the aims of ASOS with funders.
How can branches support members on casualised contracts taking
action?
General
Tailored organising and support to groups such as hourly paid staff, PGR students who
teach, and researchers on fixed term contracts has the potential to build branch
organising power during, and beyond the duration of the dispute(s).
(Help) develop networks and hold regular meetings of staff on casualised contracts to
discuss any calls for strike action and the on-going ASOS. Take action on any concerns
/ suggestions. Regular meetings can help overcome isolation / vulnerability.
Ensure that students, stakeholders and funders are aware of what is happening -
casualised staff are often the front line with direct links. Make sure they have a robust
response to any criticism of action that makes it clear that the action is the fault of
management, not of UCU members.
Make sure that staff on casualised contracts are contacted by the branch to explain the
action that is being taken and how they can participate. Many members on casualised
contracts feel isolated so it is important that branch communications are inclusive and
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reach hourly paid staff, sessional tutors, researchers, postgraduate researchers,
language tutors and other groups that are commonly on casualised contracts.
Include the voices of members on casualised contracts in communications / publicity
about the dispute(s).
Use the dispute(s) to recruit staff on casualised contracts and encourage their activism.
Be very vocal that any attempts to victimise members on casualised contracts taking
action by e.g. not offering them work in the future, will be challenged and resisted by
the branch collectively.
Strike days
On strike days, reach out to members on casualised contracts and include them in
picket rotas etc. to ensure they feel as included as possible.
Make sure that members on casualised contracts understand how to access national
strike pay and any local hardship or strike funds you may have.
In collaboration with research staff members, consider collectively writing to funders to
lobby them to publicly support the union in the dispute. There could also be public
narratives around the benefits of the research that staff do and why they have been
driven to withhold additional labour.
ASOS
Branches and union reps need to defend ASOS as a legal right to managers and
students and explain that contracted hours are inadequate if staff are unable to
undertake all their duties in the time they are paid for (including hourly paid staff).
Hold local meetings of staff on similar contract to discuss and decide how they can
support the ASOS and what ‘working to contract’ looks like. For example, let members
decide what level of non-contact work is reasonable in any comprehensive hourly rate
of pay – and encourage all members paid in this way not to spend more non-contact
time than they are being paid for. Agree and advertise this to all staff and students and
develop a standard statement for members to use in their email signatures.
Provide agreed standard advice for students on the impact on ASOS in terms of
feedback and marking.
Ask researchers how best research staff can support the ASOS that maximises
disruption to the employer whilst minimising the impact of their own career
progression.
Support research members to better leverage their networks, for example, through
guidance/instruction and encouragement to solicit supportive statements and social
media amplification.
Ask departmental reps to collate and e mail the ‘Reclaim Our Time’ spreadsheet
information to help provide cover for our most precariously employed members.
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Provide template emails to students/other staff, autoreplies, and email signatures. It
should be made clear that this is action being asked of members by the union, to try to
avoid individualisation.
How can line managers of casualised staff support them?
General
Managers can send an email in advance of strike activity/ASOS reassuring casualised
staff that they are aware of their right to strike/take ASOS, and communicate their
support for the action to casualised staff as well as to more senior management.
For PGRs, early career researchers (ECRs) or others concerned about teaching /
research quality, managers can suggest methods of ASOS to demonstrate this (for
example, making it clear that the same volume of work cannot be carried out if
industrial action is being taken).
Managers should discuss the workloads of their staff on casualised contracts, and make
it clear what are contractual duties, what are not, and how much time it is expected
they will be working. They should acknowledge that ASOS necessarily means that less
work will be done, and discuss with workers how to manage that. They should not
request meetings or responses to emails. They should not ask casualised workers to
cover or make up for work missed during the strike. There should be no retaliation for
taking part in ASOS and this should be made explicit, particularly where casualised staff
are subject to re-hiring.
Managers should encourage adherence to ASOS, model ASOS themselves, reassure
workers of positive recommendations/evaluations, offer to proactively step in and deal
with complaints from students, admin, visa compliance, etc. on behalf of staff they
manage.
Line managers of teaching staff
Line managers can help by clearly communicating to staff and students that workers
will be taking ASOS and what that means. Module convenors of courses delivered by
casualised staff can make blanket announcements about strike action/ASOS and UCU
policy to students on the course, and the reasons why these actions are being taken.
This should empower individual staff on casualised to raise these issues with students if
they choose.
Line managers can help facilitate meetings of multiple workers on a course who might
be taking ASOS, to discuss how they plan to do this and how they can support each
other. Consider creating regular staff meetings either for or including staff on
casualised contracts to regularly check in (during contracted hours of course).
Line managers of research-only staff
Principal investigators should not be asking postdocs/other researchers on their grants
to undertake work on strike days.
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Managers should check in with those they line-manage to help work out priorities for
what needs to be done on ASOS.
Use influence you have with funders to lobby funders to publicly support industrial
action.
For full details of industrial action, which branches are involved and general questions,
please please see our FAQs at: https://www.ucu.org.uk/article/12469/FAQs
These ideas have been developed and provided with input from and thanks to: HEC ASOS
sub-committee, anti-casualisation committee (ACC), Alex Reynolds-Kirby; PGRS as Staff
campaign lead, FAQs on UCU website.
