Month: June 2026

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How to claim from the national and local UCU hardship funds

Email sent to members on Tuesday 30th June 2026.

Dear members

By now many of you will have started to see pay deductions for having taken part in industrial action this summer.  As a result, I would now like to share details of how to access financial support from both the national and local hardship funds.

National UCU fighting fund:  When pay is deducted in full for a day, whether as part of a MAB or through strike action, members can apply to the national UCU fighting fund for support. They can apply for support after two waiting days ie from the third day of action onwards. They can then apply for up to a maximum of 8 days at £75/day (<£30k salary) or £50/day (>£30k salary). . 

Details on how to apply to national fighting fund can be found here. 

Members should apply to the national fund first before looking to access the local solidarity fund.

Local solidarity fund: In addition to national fund, the branch can also provide further support from our local solidarity fund.  Members should only seek this support once they have already used up their entitlement from the national fund. To this end, for as long as funds are available, we will offer: £25/day up to a maximum of £1000 for the period up to the end of July 2026. 

Click here to apply to the local solidarity fund.

You will need  to upload:

    • a copy of your payslip showing pay deductions 
    • evidence of your prior application to the national fund

Members do not need to request the full amount. In fact, in order to ensure that funds remain available to those in greatest financial need, we encourage members to consider asking for less if they feel able to do so. At the same time, if any members are under significant financial pressure and need to access more than the stated amount, you can request this in the form. We will only consider enhanced support in extreme cases. All cases will be reviewed by a team from the branch committee.

To summarise:

    • days 1-2 of your industrial action: no cover
    • days 3-10: covered by national fund (£75/day or £50/day depending on salary)
    • day 11 onwards: covered by local fund (£25/day up to a max of £1000)

If you have any questions, please contact me directly. 

In solidarity

Supporting other members taking part in the MAB/strike

All members able to impact assessments should take part in the MAB. However, if you are not involved in assessments, we ask that you donate to the local solidarity fund to help support those who are taking part, and share the burden of financial responsibility. 

We recommend a donation of at least a quarter of your take home salary for each day of the MAB.  Members who wish to donate more are, of course, welcome to do so! Here are the details to  donate to the local solidarity fund by bank transfer:

UCU Nottingham LA63 Hardship Fund

Account number: 20346359

Sort code: 60-83-01

Ref: MAB 2026

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Update from member meeting and part 2 counterproposal

Email sent to members on Monday 29th June 2026. Zoom link removed for security.

Dear Members, 

Thanks so much to the more than 240 of you who came to the meeting this morning. After a great discussion 96% of you voted to reject management’s opening offer, with many of you describing it as ‘insulting’. Following from this there was more discussion around what kind of commitments would be needed to consider standing down our current action, as well as where we find ourselves in the current dispute.

Straight after the meeting Lopa emailed the vice-chancellor with these results. We also reaffirmed our desire to continue meaningful negotiations, where the key asks are entertained, to hopefully find a solution that will mean students can still graduate in time. We are meeting management first thing Wednesday morning and they know we have another member meeting at 11.30 on Wednesday (link below) where we hope to vote again on an improved offer. We will of course keep you updated.

In the meeting we also mentioned that we submitted Part 2 of our counterproposal to management last week. This covers area by area counterproposals to complement our higher level financial analysis which we have shared previously and continue to discuss with the University. Thanks to everyone who contributed to these two really impressive documents, and do please have a read of them.

Finally, we will be sending out information on the local hardship fund ASAP now that pay deductions have started to be applied.

In solidarity,

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Dispute resolution offer

Email sent to members on Friday 26th June 2026. Zoom links omitted. Attachments embedded as links in text.

Dear members

Thank you for all the work you are doing to stop the proposed job losses (700 redundancies in FN2, with CR if they don’t get the VR), course closures,  reduced research time and SSR (one fits all disciplines philosophy). Your efforts are working, both the very effective MAB, and the various conversations you and we are having with local MPS, Councillors, newspapers (Times Higher, Nottingham Post), television (BBC, ITN, Channel 4), radio (BBC Nottingham ) and of course UCU press. These resulted in letters from MPs to VC, Public Statements of concern and  questions raised in Parliament. We do have support of students, anxious about graduating  correctly. 

We went to a dispute resolution meeting on 18 June, where VC/UEB  agreed to look at our proposals and solutions.  Jane has replied, see above. They have organised a second meeting on this. This will be on Wednesday (1 July).  Please peruse the  long letter (and Appendix)  Jane wrote, attached, where she spells out her thoughts, the next steps  in the business case, and asks for MAB to be stopped in time for students to graduate. The branch committee has met today, to discuss this, and we have sent her a response, stating why the concessions detailed were inadequate. We have re-iterated our asks and have sent her our UCU Counterproposal Part 2.  

Before we go in on 1 July, we want your opinion on all this, and on the next steps you wish to take. We want you to come to two meetings : The first is on Monday (29 June), where we can take your opinion on the current offer and valued suggestions to take to the second dispute negotiation meeting scheduled  for the Wednesday morning. At our UCU meeting, we will also take a vote on management’s proposal, either the one outlined in the VC’s letter or an improved version of that.

We have also organised a branch meeting with you straight after the dispute meeting; to relate any proposed changes they offer, take your vote, and discuss the next steps in our dispute. (Please find the Zoom links to both meetings below.)

Do come, let us stop this awful FN2 that will damage our university irreversibly.

In solidarity, sadness, anger and fight-back spirit,

    Lopa, on behalf of branch committee.

PS. The donations from other UCU branches have been brilliant! Amazing Solidarity, we are now legendary! Unfortunately we are also a university fighting back the highest number of redundancies in HE.  I am sure our Treasurer will let you know how much has been amassed in the hardship fund, and how we can increase payouts, etc

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Updated MAB and strike advice

Email sent to members on Monday 22nd June 2026.

Dear members,

Over the last week, the Department Reps network has identified a number of questions and scenarios for members participating in the Marking and Assessment Boycott. Whilst the situation varies across the 28 academic schools, and between courses within a single school, there are some relatively common features to what we are seeing reported. 

This email is an attempt to summarise what is known at this stage of our dispute and the University’s assessment cycle, and provide broad guidance for UoN UCU members in relation to participation in the MAB and/or strike action. It cannot speak to all possible scenarios and as the context at the University changes, it may prove necessary to update this guidance. 

Wider position of the UoN UCU Branch after 15th June marking deadline

    1. Strike action and Action Short of a Strike (ASOS), including the Marking and Assessment Boycott (MAB), remain in place until 31st July or until the Branch decides otherwise, for example in response to an acceptable offer from the Vice Chancellor and UEB.
    2. After June 15th, we note clear communications in some Schools that further marks are not required for Registry, including for work still unmarked due to the MAB. 
    3. In other Schools the contingency regulations cannot be universally applied (e.g. due to accreditation requirements) and therefore marking duties have not been withdrawn.
    4. Where marking continues to be required, the MAB should continue. This also applies to moderation of marked work (see item 11). 
    5. Those members who no longer have assessment duties cannot, for the moment, participate in the MAB. In these areas where management has indicated marks are no longer required, deductions for participation in the MAB appear likely to end on June 15th. 
    6. There is an upcoming window from mid-July when students may reject ‘part for whole’ and ‘derived marks’ produced by the Contingency Regulations where no actual mark exists. When students reject such made up marks, members may find they are asked to provide an actual mark. At this stage, members should return to participating in the MAB.
    7. It continues to be an expectation that all members participate in disruptive industrial action that brings management into meaningful negotiations on the terms of our dispute. As some members return to work under ASOS, they must take care to act in solidarity and neither accidentally nor purposefully undermine the industrial action of others.
    8. To summarise, the 15th June deadline covers a significant portion of assessment related work but not all of it. The MAB, wider ASOS and strike authorisation remain in place so that members with marking duties are not obliged to complete this work and continue the disruption that puts pressure on the University to negotiate.
    9. It remains in the Vice Chancellor and UEB’s power to bring this dispute and the disruption from our industrial action to an end.

What does this mean for UCU members?

    1. If member has been explicitly told they have no assessment related work to complete, they can consider their participation in the MAB at an end for the time being. If the status of your assessment related work hasn’t been communicated to you, talk to your UCU Rep. 
    2. Regarding moderation, where actual marks exist members should not provide verification of the marking process by completing the paperwork. However, if asked to complete moderation paperwork for a module where no marking has occurred due to the MAB, members should record that no actual marks exist and submit the paperwork accordingly, ensuring the relevant Exam Boards are formally notified. 
    3. If a member is asked directly about their past or present participation in the MAB, they should answer honestly. Being asked directly includes emails addressed to you specifically. It does not include where the request is one item amongst others in an all-staff email (see specific UCU guidance on this from the branch here and national here). 
    4. As with strike action, no one should declare their future participation as the action has yet to happen, and it may get called off if a deal is reached. 
    5. Members should keep in mind that wider ASOS remains in place (e.g. not covering for absent colleagues, working to hours, full list accessible here) .
    6. If assessment work is allocated to a member or required by a line manager (e.g. moderation activities, or marking work where students rejected a derived or part-for-whole mark), members should refuse on the grounds that they are taking part in ASOS/MAB, and/or return to strike action to prevent being required to work for free. 
    7. Members may remain on strike entirely whilst the authorisation for strike action is in place. 
    8. When members receive their June payslip showing evidence of pay deductions for industrial action (the payslip can be downloaded as a pdf from UniCore), they should apply to the UCU national Fighting Fund in the first instance, then to the local branch solidarity fund (details of how to apply to be shared nearer to payslip publication). 
    9. If you have questions related to the above, speak to your Department Rep. If you do not have a Department Rep, contact the Branch Committee: uonucubranch@gmail.com 

In solidarity,