University staff and students have signed an open letter to the University of Manchester Vice-Chancellor after lecturers announced they would stop marking any exams, dissertations, or other coursework, in an escalation over a pay dispute.<\/p>\n
The University and College Union (UCU) \u2013 the lecturers union \u2013 announced they would start a marking boycott from 28th<\/sup> April, the first day of term after Easter break, and the deadline for many students\u2019 dissertations.<\/p>\n The open letter to Vice-Chancellor Dame Nancy Rothwell, made as part of a petition on ipetitions.com, reads, \u201cI believe that all employees at this great university deserve your support and recognition for the role we play in delivering high quality research, education and services for our students.”<\/p>\n The threat from university lecturers \u2013 which could ultimately impact graduations \u2013 follows further industrial action this academic year, with six strikes since October 2013, over a one per cent pay increase offer, rejected by university staff.<\/p>\n Unions, including UCU, Unite, and Unison, are campaigning for a better pay deal after the last four years have seen lecturers suffer a 13 per cent pay cut in real terms.<\/p>\n Lecturers have also been angered by university vice-chancellors\u2019 pay rises, which average five per cent, and who they say now earn an average of \u00a3235,000.<\/p>\n In an email to student society leaders, University of Manchester Students\u2019 Union Education Officer Rosie Dammers called for students to support staff and to \u201ctake action\u201d by signing the open letter to Dame Nancy.<\/p>\n \u201cAs students I believe we have a responsibility to make sure the staff who teach us are paid a fair wage,\u201d said Dammers in the email. \u201cIf we are taught by over-worked and underpaid staff, it is our education that will suffer.<\/p>\n \u201cWe also have a responsibility to stand in solidarity with the Postgraduate Research students who teach, who are often those who are most exploited and, in some cases, don\u2019t even get paid a living wage.<\/p>\n \u201cYou can take action now to stop this boycott from happening by signing this petition and getting your friends and family to do the same. It asks university management to support us as students and\u00a0stand up for what is right\u00a0in order to stop this marking boycott of our assessments.\u201d<\/p>\n 676 people had signed the petition as of Monday 10th March.<\/p>\n Commenters on the petition showed support for staff, and questioned the University\u2019s financial decisions, \u201cThe Staff at this university deserve BETTER (sic),\u201d said Francesca Saunders.<\/p>\n \u201cHow can you justify a \u00a31 billion investment on facilities whilst not even paying your staff a living wage?\u201d Asked Claire Laxton.<\/p>\n Nicholas Byres wrote, \u201cAs a student rep, I will be making my fellow students aware of this matter.\u201d<\/p>\n The UCU last used a marking boycott as a tactic in 2006, which saw a deal worked out before any action was enforced.<\/p>\n If implemented, the boycott would see lecturers refuse to attend meetings in preparation for exams, meaning the disruption of final year exams for those graduating this year.<\/p>\n Dammers also said, \u201cThe marking boycott\u2026could have a real impact on our education.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u00a0have spoken personally to the trade unions, and they are adamant they do not want [the] boycott to go ahead. They feel they have been forced into taking this action because their employers have so far refused to enter into negotiations with them.\u201d<\/p>\n The Universities and Colleges Employers Association, who represent higher education institutions \u2013 including Manchester \u2013 in pay negotiations with staff, have agreed to enter \u201cexploratory\u201d talks with UCU.<\/p>\n UCEA declined to comment further until the exploratory talks take place later in March, but said in a statement last month, \u201cstaff carrying out such a \u2018damaging course\u2019 could face a full withdrawal of pay.\u201d<\/p>\n The UCEA also said the union\u2019s campaign had lost support, with recent strikes having little or no effect, and said it was \u201cdisappointed\u201d at the marking boycott, which it called action \u201conce again aimed directly at students\u2019 education.\u201d<\/p>\n UCU general secretary, Sally Hunt, called a marking boycott \u201cthe ultimate sanction, but an avoidable one if the employers would negotiate with us over pay.<\/p>\n \u201cNo member I have spoken to wishes to see this dispute escalate, but in the continued absence of meaningful negotiations from the employers, we are left with no alternative.<\/p>\n \u201cI fail to see how any university can claim to have students\u2019 best interests at heart if it is not pushing for talks with the union to resolve this dispute.\u201d<\/p>\n She added, “The strong support for our action so far demonstrates how angry staff are at the hypocrisy over pay in our universities.<\/p>\n \u201cThe employers cannot plead poverty when it comes to staff pay and then award enormous rises to a handful at the top.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" – Open letter to Dame Nancy Rothwell calls for fair pay for lecturers
\n– Marking boycott to start 28th April<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":703,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mancunion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11938"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mancunion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mancunion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mancunion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/703"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mancunion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11938"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mancunion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11938\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mancunion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11938"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mancunion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11938"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mancunion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11938"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mancunion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=11938"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}