Email to staff 30 May 2023 from HR

Important information for staff participating in the Marking and Assessment Boycott

For the attention of University of York employees only. This relates to anyone who has recently participated, is currently participating or intends to participate in the Marking and Assessment Boycott.

Dear colleagues,

Further to Rachael Millhouse's email on 12 May, I write to remind you of the process of declaring participation in the current Marking and Assessment Boycott. I also have some further information and updates.

Declaration of participation and salary deductions

As previously described, salary deductions will be applied as follows to individuals where:

• Marking fails to be submitted on the notified, department determined, completion deadline date (with no good reason and agreed in advance with the HoD).
• Marking was not completed by you and you were the person to which it was originally allocated and made available to and there is no good reason (unless agreed in advance with the HoD) for this other than participation in the Marking and Assessment Boycott.
  OR
• Where an individual has completed the self-declaration to notify HR that they are participating in the Marking and Assessment Boycott.
  In the above circumstances, salary will be withdrawn from the marking completion deadline.

I now write to formally ask you to declare if you are currently or have participated (and not yet declared to HR that you have) in the current Marking and Assessment boycott. You must make this declaration to HR via the Marking and Assessment Boycott Participation form.

Staff can withdraw from the boycott at any time by choosing the relevant option in the Marking and Assessment Boycott Participation form. By doing so you will be notifying the University of the date that you will be resuming your full contractual duties.

When will I see the salary deductions in my pay?

At the beginning of each month HR will review Marking and Assessment Boycott participation for the previous month, specifically they'll be looking at participation from the 1st to the end of the previous month. HR will liaise with departments in order to check and validate the data as required, for example, to establish when the deadline for assessment/marking was. Once this has been done any new participants in that month will be contacted and advised of the start date of salary deductions. Should those colleagues believe there to be an error they must make contact with HR (using the email address in the letter). However, please be advised that past a certain point in the month corrections might not be able to be picked up prior to the payroll run. Please note the payroll deadlines outlined below:

Deduction 'pause' to allow review of the impact of Marking and Assessment Boycott

Please be advised that there will be a temporary 'pause' of salary deductions for Marking and Assessment Boycott between 23 June and 14 August. This is to review the impact and position of the University before commencing the process again.

I do realise that many staff will not wish to participate in this action and we deeply regret having to write to staff who do not intend to take part to confirm their intentions. However, the actions of UCU require us to make plans to mitigate any impact on students and to ensure that we have fully communicated the University's position to all staff, and we hope that you will understand why it is necessary.

The University very much hopes that you will decide not to take part in the industrial action, and that it will not be necessary to implement the above policy on pay in your case.

If you have any queries about this email please contact hr-enquiries@york.ac.uk. Furthermore, the staff FAQ is available for you to refer to should you need to.

Kind regards

Helen Selvidge
Assistant Director of Human Resources