“Cutting staff pay for a marking boycott when continuing their other duties is unfair and confrontational, and will only further alienate staff.”
By Adwitiya Pal. Cover image by Mehek Seth
The MP for Cynon Valley, Beth Winter, has hit out at university bosses in south Wales who plan to deduct the pay of workers taking part in action short of strike.
Cardiff University, along with University of South Wales Cardiff Met, have tried intimidating UCU members taking part in the Marking and Assessment Boycott by threatening to withhold up to 100% of their entire salary, despite them fulfilling all other responsibilities.
Last week, voice.wales spoke to lecturers from Cardiff University on how they felt about the university’s actions, and Dr Andy Williams, a Cardiff UCU media spokesperson said: “It’s clearly a coordinated response from the UCEA to intimidate us and break the strike. It’s punitive bullying behaviour.”
voice.wales has seen the emails which were sent to all Cardiff University workers, and the university believes “where a breach does occur we reserve the right to withhold 100% of pay, at a daily rate of 1/365 of annual salary”.
However, they go on to say that in the first instance of such a breach, they will withhold 50% of the pay, while the other half is discretionary, conditional on all other contractual responsibilities being met on a voluntary basis by staff, although they are “under no obligation to pay them for any work done during the period”.
UCU members told us that in response they will consider escalating their action by serving a notice for full strike action. There are also talks of the UCU deciding to withdraw labour from universities during the crucial admission period in summer.
A couple of universities like Queen Mary University, London and Leeds University have backed down on the 100% deductions for non-rescheduled classes during the strikes (but not marking boycott), in fear of the UCU implementing further industrial action that will significantly disrupt university operations and the admissions process.
However, universities in Wales are yet to back down from their threats. voice.wales asked a number of politicians in south Wales what their response was to the strike-breaking tactics.
Beth Winter, Labour MP for Cynon Valley, responded with the following statement.
“University staff deserve fair pay and fair terms. That is all they’re asking for.
“Universities should be working to resolve this dispute but instead they are deepening it.
“Cutting staff pay for a marking boycott when continuing their other duties is unfair and confrontational, and will only further alienate staff.
“Management at Welsh universities need to withdraw their threats and stop putting people’s livelihoods at risk.”
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