The University and College Union (UCU) has today (Friday 13 April) announced the suspension of the planned industrial action at Southampton and other universities for the week commencing 16 April. This includes Action Short of a Strike*.
This means that all seminars, lectures and modules will take place as normal from the start of the new semester.
This follows a ballot of UCU members nationally which voted in favour of a Universities UK (UUK) proposal to convene an independent Joint Expert Panel to review the valuation of the USS pension scheme.
The University welcomes the decision immediately to suspend further strike action. Delivering a high quality education and experience to our students remains our highest priority, and we deeply regret the impact the industrial action has had on some of our current students, at a particularly challenging time of the academic year. We will continue to work closely with all affected students to ensure their studies resume as normal, with procedures in place to fully account for any disruption experienced to date.
Discussions will now continue between UUK and UCU regarding the next steps of the process, and USS members will receive further information on any implications for the pension scheme in due course. We will continue to keep students and staff fully updated on developments via SUSSED and our Student Communications channels (listed below).
If you are unclear of any actions that have been put in place to mitigate the impact of previous industrial action, please visit the Frequently Asked Questions webpage.
Helpful links:
- Student Frequently Asked Questions
- All SUSSED posts about Industrial Action
- List of all support services
- Students’ Union independent advice centre
Student Communications channels:
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/uosstudentcomms
- WhatsApp channel: Sign up by messaging us within the app on Tel. +44 (0)7733 000 781 with the types of communications you’d like to receive out of: ‘News’ ‘Events’ ‘Opportunities’. We will be using the ‘news’ category to communicate about strike action with students.
- Add us on Snapchat: unisouthampton
*Action short of a strike consists of participating members working to contract, which means not covering for absent colleagues, not rescheduling lectures or classes cancelled due to strike action, not covering some specialist services and not undertaking any voluntary activities.
