Strike action, MAB consultation and reballot

Our higher education committee (HEC) has today voted to take further industrial action before the end of September and to launch a reballot in the pay and conditions dispute over the coming months.  

The marking and assessment boycott (MAB) continues. As so many of you have experienced on the ground, the MAB has been a hugely punishing undertaking, with an unprecedentedly vicious employer response. HEC has therefore decided to seek your views on how we use the tactic for the remainder of our current industrial action mandate, and you will receive details of this in due course. 

This has been an incredibly bitter dispute and continued employer intransigence after all this time is infuriating. But the message today is clear: we won't be bullied into standing down.  

We are fighting not only for fair pay and conditions, but for universities that serve staff, students, and the public good. Employers are disgracing themselves and undermining the entire sector. This weekend even the government intervened to call for a negotiated settlement. 

We know that a fresh UK-wide ballot means a massive organising effort in your workplaces. As has been the case in every ballot, each and every one of us has a crucial role to play in persuading colleagues to join us and grow the union.  

Sticking with the unbreakable collective resolve you have shown, we can win this dispute and transform higher education.  

In Solidarity

Jo Grady
UCU general secretary