UCU have confirmed that forty-four universities across the UK are set to conduct a marking and assessment boycott in the coming months, a move which is likely to prevent students from receiving grades. Newcastle University is one institutions where the boycott is set to take place.
On top of this, thirty-nine universities will be conducting a further ten days of strike action this academic year. The timing and nature of the boycott has yet to be announced by the UCU but the decision is expected to be be ratified at the next Higher Education Committee on the 12th of May.
The Special Higher Education Conference was held on the 20th April to review the progress of the Four Fights campaign and for university delegates to decide on the next steps in the dispute. There is a belief among a large portion of the UCU membership that a serious escalation in the pay and pensions dispute is needed to incur concessions from employers, despite the strike action already conducted this year.
The majority of members voted for strikes and ASOS (Action Short Of Strike), including a marking and assessment boycott. On the four fights, 73.99% voted to strike; 85.91% for ASOS. On USS 79.45% voted to strike; 88.15% for ASOS. Over 40 branches surpassed the 50% total yes vote. The UCU now needs the decision to be ratified by the General Secretary and UCU officers whereupon the industrial action will be planned and initiated.
At the most recent UCU conference, the delegates who proposed the assessment boycott noted that ‘the neoliberal university depends on data streams as never before, and is particularly vulnerable to their closure’. In further justification of the strike action, they cited a marking boycott at Newcastle University in 2016 which was successful in dismantling a university proposal for a target-based performance management scheme that was highly unpopular among staff.
The Four Fights is an attempt to tackle serious issues regarding the erosion of pay, use of insecure contracts and casualisation of a majority of university staff, workplace inequality and unmanageable workloads in one dispute. The UCU demands fair treatment for staff across the sector, and a core part of its strategy to bring meaningful negotiations from the university will now be continued strike action. While the proportion of universities' money which they spend on staff has decreased over time, recently hitting a new low of 51.6%, the sector's overall income is higher than ever and keeps increasing. It has increased every year for the past five years at a rate that comfortably exceeds every measure of inflation.
NUSU Postgraduate Officer Eleanor McCarthy commented that the Students' Union currently "knows the same information as students [...] but we are having regular meetings with the University and will be updating students as soon as we can". Eleanor also made it clear that NUSU is "mandated by Student Council to continue to support the strike action and particularly to support postgraduate research students."
Lastly, Eleanor acknowledged the the strike action has continually been a distressing occurrence for students, and that the upcoming boycott may well continue that distress. However, she also emphasised that "NUSU is here for all students and will be working with the university to represent your academic interests and wellbeing during this time."
A poll run by the Newcastle Student Union in February found that 53% of the 1600 students that voted supported the upcoming strike action, with 42% voting against strike action. Recent findings suggest the marking boycott is unpopular with the student body. A poll run by the Tab Online this week found that 73% of respondents no longer supported striking academic staff. This latest stage in the four fights campaign will have an even more direct effect on students' academic work, possibly delaying graduation for some final year students.
A Newcastle University spokesperson said: "We want to reassure students that we are putting plans in place to ensure that no student is disadvantaged in their awards because of this latest action. We will ensure assessed work is marked, and that students in their final year graduate this summer on schedule. Many students will not be affected at all.” No new plans for the mitigation of strike or ASOS action were revealed by the University.
The impact will vary between schools depending on the staff body’s level of participation with strike action. Final year students in particular may become collateral damage in the latest development of the pay and pensions dispute, as there remains a possibility that some students will have their final marks back late and their graduation delayed.