Email to students 8 March 2022

Dear students,

I am sorry to have to share this news with you that the national University and College Union (UCU) has announced that a further round of industrial action will take place in universities across the UK. It will be five days of action accompanied by continuous action short of a strike.

Strike dates announced are Monday 21 to Friday 25 March 2022 (five days), the week following the end of Spring Term. 

Alongside this, the action short of a strike will continue and will finish no later than Tuesday 3 May 2022. This means staff working their contracted hours and duties and not volunteering to do more.

I am very aware that this is yet more strike action, which I know has impacted some students more than others. 

I have been very clear - both at the local level here in York and to the national parties involved in the negotiations - that I do not think industrial action is the answer to the current disputes. So many of you have faced such upheaval. And there is more we can do by building on common ground. In my own conversations with our local UCU branch, we have been discussing that some of the progress we have made locally on pay and conditions could be a template for a new approach at the national level, too.

For those Departments heavily affected, our priority remains to review the impact and make arrangements to mitigate this wherever possible, including rescheduling teaching, providing complementary teaching, supporting learning in other ways and making adjustments to assessments.

We will be updating our Industrial Action web pages with the latest information and the answers to your questions.

Best wishes,

Charlie Jeffery

Vice-Chancellor