Industrial action

Not all courses will be affected by strike action, and you may not know in advance whether or not your scheduled teaching is going ahead.

To ensure that you don't miss out on your learning, you should come to all your scheduled teaching sessions unless your department tells you not to.

If you arrive for teaching and your lecturer isn't there, please wait for a sensible length of time (eg 15 minutes) before assuming that your session isn't going ahead. Other facilities on campus will be available as usual, so you will still be able to use the study spaces, Library, restaurants and cafes.

Your department will let you know of any opportunities to catch up on the missed learning or, for first years, chances to meet up with others on your course.

If you're a study visa holder, you will not be penalised for missing a teaching session which is cancelled due to strike action.

The dispute is national, affecting all UK universities and is about pay and conditions.

On pay and conditions, we work within national-level pay arrangements but we also work locally with our campus trade unions to make progress. We have made significant strides here in York. We are a real Living Wage Employer and we have worked hard to improve working arrangements for Graduate Teaching Assistants (GTA), including moving from casual contracts. For example, we have widened the offer of fixed term contracts to include GTA Demonstrators in addition to GTA Tutors. We now have more than 400 GTAs who have been issued fixed term contracts for the 2022/23 academic year, a significant increase from the 150 we offered during the previous year. We think this is well above comparable institutions and has been really welcomed by our postgraduate students.

How we influence the debate

These are national-level negotiations, but we continue to do all that we can to influence the debate. Charlie Jeffery, the Vice-Chancellor wrote a comment piece in the Financial Times in January 2023, which was based on his wider opinion piece. His message is that we need to tackle the root causes of the problems we face, and that all parties need to come together to find a resolution. 

The VC, and his team, are working to help shape conversations at national level, and to continue opening up new ground for discussion with a view towards resolution of the current disputes. He has been calling on our campus unions to use their channels to help shape national conversations in this way. 

To find our way out of this cycle of disruption, we need everyone - staff, unions, students and student unions - to be building common ground, influencing national processes through our respective channels, and ultimately working together to tackle the root causes of the current disputes and move on from disruptive strike action.

For now, we will continue to do all we can to support you through this period of disruption. Keep checking these pages for our advice and guidance.

Departments will review the impact of industrial action, and will make arrangements to mitigate the effects on students wherever possible.

Where there is strike action, mitigations might include rescheduling teaching, providing complementary teaching, supporting learning in other ways and making adjustments to assessment.

Based on lessons learnt and experience from previous periods of industrial action, we will be working very closely with the most heavily affected departments to explore activities and contingencies we can put in place to minimise the impact of industrial action. 

Please keep your department informed of lost or affected teaching and learning so that they have an accurate picture of the impact on their students.

Your assessments will not rely on anything that you have missed due to industrial action. Whilst some assessments may not be able to be adapted in advance due to timings, the final marking/assessment will take into account the content you have missed, so that you are not penalised.

We won't know in advance which lectures/seminars will be cancelled so it's important that you still attend for teaching scheduled on the strike days.

Where teaching is cancelled, your department will keep you informed of any further learning opportunities or resources to compensate for missed teaching.

Staff taking strike action may form pickets at popular entrance points to campus.

Picketers may wish to tell you about the action. If you come across a picket line, it is entirely up to you if you wish to engage or not with members of staff taking part in the industrial action.

Staff taking action should not stop you from accessing campus, and will not be at the entrances to individual buildings. If you feel uncomfortable there is usually another entrance on to campus that you can use.

If your wellbeing is affected in any way, support is available through our central services, from your department, and via our students unions (YUSU and GSA).

Please see our student support and advice pages for links and contact details.

This applies to all students (undergraduate, postgraduate taught and postgraduate researchers) but please be aware that our support and advice teams may be busier than normal at this time.

We hope that the majority of our students do not see too much disruption as a result of the industrial action. Our priority is making sure we have the right support and procedures in place and we are working across academic and support departments to minimise the impact on students and to mitigate any lost learning opportunities. Above all, we are determined that industrial action does not compromise the quality of your education, your progression through your programme, or the quality of a degree from the University of York.

Where industrial action has taken place, departments will review any impact and take action first to prioritise any adjustments to assessment, and then to plan to make any other arrangements required.

Your exams and other assessments will not rely on any teaching that you miss as a result of this industrial action. Your department will keep you informed of any further learning opportunities or resources to mitigate for missed teaching.

If at any point you still feel you have been adversely affected, there is a process you can follow which starts with talking to your department. 

• Find information about how to raise concerns as an appeal or complaint

Where staff take strike action, the appropriate portion of their salary (1/365th of their annual pay per day of strike action) will be withheld. Whenever pay is withheld, we liaise with the Students Unions to agree a way to use this money to the benefit of our students.

For the last round of strike action (2022 - 23), we've agreed that withheld funds should be used to support students affected by the cost of living crisis.

Withheld pay from strike action in December 2021 - February 2022 was allocated as follows:

10% - Languages for All courses for postgraduates

10% - Student Projects Fund

40% - Hardship funding

40% - Tackling student digital poverty via the Broadband Access Scheme

July 2023

• Email to UG finalists 3 July 2023
• Email to progressing UG students 3 July 2023

June 2023

• Excerpt from VC's end of year message to UG students 13 June 2023

April 2023

• Email to students 18 April 2023

March 2023

• Email to students 1 March 2023

February 2023

• Email to students 20 February 2023
• Letter to YUSU Sabbatical Officers, February 2023

January 2023

• Email to students 25 January 2023
• Email to students 19 January 2023

November 2022

• Email to students 9 November 2022

Update: February 2023

Confirmation of strike days

UCU has now announced that, in total, there will be eighteen strike days spread across February and March as follows:

• w/c 30 January (Week 4): Wednesday 1 February
• w/c 6 February (Week 5): Thursday 9 and Friday 10 February
• w/c 13 February (Week 6): Tuesday 14, Wednesday 15, and Thursday 16 February
• w/c 20 February (Week 7): Tuesday 21, Wednesday 22 and Thursday 23 February (NOW PAUSED)
• w/c 27 February (Week 8): Monday 27, Tuesday 28 February, Wednesday 1 and Thursday 2 March (NOW PAUSED)
• w/c 13 March (Week 10): Wednesday 15*, Thursday 16 and Friday 17 March (*additional date announced on Tuesday 28 February)
• w/c 20 March (out of term time for some programmes): Monday 20, Tuesday 21 and Wednesday 22 March.

This industrial action will take place in universities across the UK, including York.

Update: 9 November 2022

The national University and College Union (UCU) has announced that industrial action will take place in universities across the UK in the form of three days of action accompanied by continuous action short of a strike.

• Strike action will take place on Thursday 24 November, Friday 25 November and Wednesday 30 November.
• The action short of a strike is intended to be continuous and will start on 23 November 2022 and will finish no later than 20 April 2023.
• The action short of a strike is where staff may limit some of their activities, for example, working to contract, not covering for absent colleagues, not rescheduling lectures or classes cancelled as a result of strike, and not undertaking other voluntary activities.

Update: 26 October 2022

The University and College Union (UCU) has announced that its two national ballots over pay, working conditions and pensions came out in favour of industrial action. The UCU will meet on Thursday 3 November to decide next steps. We will update staff and students with further details as soon as we receive them.

March 2022

• Email to students 8 March 2022

February 2022

• Email to students 18 February 2022
• Email to students 11 February 2022

January 2022

• Email to students 28 January 2022

November 2021

• Email to students 25 November 2021
• Email to students 17 November 2021
• YUSU industrial action roundtable 15 November 2021
• Email to students 8 November 2021
• Email to students 4 November 2021

Update: March 2022

The national University and College Union (UCU) has announced that a further round of industrial action will take place in universities across the UK in the form of five days of action in addition to the ongoing action short of a strike.

Strike dates announced are as follows:

• Monday 21 to Friday 25 March 2022 (five days)

Update: January 2022

The national University and College Union (UCU) has announced that a further round of industrial action will take place in universities across the UK in the form of 10 days of action accompanied by continuous action short of a strike.

Strike dates announced are as follows:

• Week 1: Monday 14 to Friday 18 February 2022 (5 days)
• Week 2: Monday 21 and Tuesday 22 February 2022 (2 days)
• Week 3: Monday 28 February, Tuesday 1 March and Wednesday 2 March (3 days)

The action short of a strike is:

• staff working their contracted hours and duties and not volunteering to do more,
• (effective Tuesday 21 December 2021) not rescheduling classes and lectures cancelled due to strike action,
• (effective Wednesday 05 January 2022) not covering for absent colleagues,
• and (effective Wednesday 05 January 2022) removing uploaded materials related to, and/or not sharing related materials related to, lectures or classes that will be or have been canceled as a result of strike action.

This page will be updated when we have more information. 

November 2021

The national University and College Union (UCU) has announced that industrial action will take place in universities across the UK in the form of three days of action accompanied by continuous action short of a strike.

• Strike action will take place on Wednesday 1, Thursday 2 and Friday 3 December 2021.
• The action short of a strike is intended to be continuous and will start on Wednesday 1 December 2021 and will finish no later than 3 May 2022.
• The action short of a strike is staff working their contracted hours and duties and not volunteering to do more, and (effective Tuesday 21 December 2021) not rescheduling classes and lectures cancelled due to strike action.

It is important that you attend your scheduled teaching, labs, supervisions and other learning activities, unless you have been told otherwise by your department. Not doing so could mean missing your teaching, which could affect your studies.

This is especially important for any student who has attendance as part of their visa requirements. In the past, the UKVI have not held students responsible for missing teaching which was not available due to industrial action, but students must engage where teaching continues.