Action short of strike or ASOS is a broad term that includes withdrawal of some of your labour while continuing to work. Often, this includes only doing the work in your contract, deliberately working at a steady pace rather than rushing to complete work, or refusing to do specific tasks. Fundamentally, the intention is to cause disruption to the service provided by the university through reduced quality and efficiency of work.
Below are some examples of what these ASOS actions might look like for your job role. You can use this template as an automatic email reply during the ASOS period.
What counts as ASOS?
The list of all that can count as ASOS is incredibly long and will vary based on job roles. ASOS starts from 24th July 2025 and continues until either thee is a satisfactory resolution in this dispute or our mandate expires, whichever is first. Actions secured in this current mandate include::
- Not working beyond contractual obligations
- Not covering for absent colleagues or unfilled posts
- Not rescheduling or sharing materials from strike-affected events
- Not performing voluntary or out of grade duties
- Not using personal devices for university work
- Not participating in graduation related activities
- Not participating in student recruitment activities*
- Not completing administrative work related to REF, course reviews, Future Nottingham, university rankings, timetabling or financial year end
- Boycotting marking and assessment activity**
*Note there is specific guidance on admissions and recruitment activity.
**While we have the mandate to undertake a marking and assessment boycott (MAB), the Branch Committee vote to not initiate this. However, the option remains available to use should the dispute require escalation.
We have the mandate to impact student recruitment events like open days, why aren’t we doing this?
Although we have secured the mandate to take ASOS impacting student recruitment events, our branch committee has chosen not to endorse this step in the initial stages of this dispute.
The university is struggling to recruit students to many courses, to the degree that course closures (and associated job losses) are a threat in many departments, and already a reality for some. Even where recruitment is stable, financial input from student fees is critical to supporting the financial stability of the university. By threatening the stability of student recruitment with ASOS that interrupts the admissions and recruitment process, we risk significant losses of student numbers and significant losses to funding across the board.
If there is a need to escalate our industrial action, then this remains an option we have available to consider.
What doesn’t count as ASOS?
As the name suggests, striking is not included within ASOS. There may also be other disruptive actions that are not within the remit of the list above, and these would not be protected as ASOS because they are beyond the mandate we have. If in doubt, speak to your Department Rep.
Why do ASOS?
Members of our branch voted overwhelmingly in favour of ASOS in the recent ballot. Once industrial action is voted for democratically and later called, it is the expectation that all members take part, even if they didn’t vote in favour. As a union, our collective strength is always our most powerful weapon. Industrial action is not something we carry out as individuals, but together.
The primary aim of ASOS is to cause disruption to the university. The disruption you cause could be delays to tasks being completed or the absence of completed work. Effective ASOS can significantly impact productivity, efficiency and service delivery. By slowing down the university, we will together highlight the scale of work completed beyond our contracts and the value that we each provide. We will also show the scale of the loss of goodwill in response to these severe cuts to our own and our colleagues’ jobs. The more people involved in ASOS and maximising the intensity and visibility of this, the more effective it will be.
After a period of ASOS, you may find that you are reevaluating the volume and intensity of the work you would usually do on a day to day basis. You may have further recognised that your workload is excessive and unsustainable, or that deadlines set for you are unrealistic within the hours available to you. You will likely have held yourself back from donating more of your valuable personal time to your employer at the cost of your rest, health, social life and family time and likely want to continue putting yourself first. Start by discussing this with your line manager, identifying the health and safety implications of your excessive workload and identify areas where this could be reduced or better spread out. You can also contact our branch workload health and safety officer Jenny at jenny.elliott.ucu@gmail.com to discuss your experiences and get support going forward. To gather data about the time you spend working on various tasks (including doing two things at once), the apps/plugins like Clockify can be helpful for tracking this to support your self-advocacy.
How can I maximise the impact of the ASOS that I am doing?
As with all industrial action and campaigning, being loud and noticeable makes it more effective. By grabbing the attention of your colleagues, managers, students, funders and members of the wider community, you draw attention to the reason you are taking action. The more people that know you are doing ASOS, and the better they understand the reason for it, the more effective your actions will be. When communicating about ASOS you have taken, be sure to only refer to past actions, as disclosing future intended ASOS gives university leadership an opportunity to undermine your action.
Below are some ways you can draw their attention to your ASOS and the reason behind it:
Put it in your email signature.
Have a line or two in your email signature that explains that you are taking ASOS and why and what this can mean for managing expectations. This will be visible to anyone you contact by email, raising the profile of this. Here you can also include links to the blog posts, or to resources people can use to express to UON UEB the impact your ASOS is having on them.
For example:
[your name]
Taking ASOS to fight redundancies. Please expect a delay to all responses and the completion of tasks. Find out about why here.
[Job title]
Put it in an automatic email response that stays live throughout the mandated period.
This will inform everyone who contacts you what you are doing and why. Although there is a template available, it can be valuable to personalise this to your own perspective. You can also include links to further information such as the more specific resources on
How did the University get into this mess?,
Why these cuts are a bad idea,
Our Counterproposal to Phase 1,
or the overall Redundancy Campaign page
Which has a range of information posted. Crucially, use this to signpost people to direct their frustration at the decision makers that have caused you to respond in this way, rather than directing that frustration unproductively at you (you can link to this email template)
Tell your colleagues why you’re turning something down
When you turn down a task or explain that you will take longer than usual to get something done, be sure you explain why. “I can’t do that because it is outside of my job role. I am currently taking action short of strike against the compulsory redundancies and this includes working only to the limits of my contact.” Or “I will be able to do that, but I will take longer than usual to get to it, likely not until [date]. This is because I am currently taking action short of strike against the compulsory redundancies which includes not working outside of my contracted hours. Where I may have volunteered my personal time to complete this work quicker in the past, I am no longer doing so.”
Talk about it in class, supervision or in meetings with students
Students will be impacted by your action, especially if you have direct contact with them through teaching and supervision. Spend some time explaining to students you work with the issues that have inspired you to take ASOS, and what ASOS involves. Be sure that this is not included within class recordings or uploaded slides. Personalising what you say can really help students appreciate the impact this has on you and on them. For example, when identifying the teams where you and colleagues are being made redundant or facing significant increases to workload following VR (and maybe CR, and MARS, and unfilled roles, and……) who these members of staff are to them eg “the people who answer your student support enquiries, the assessment team who process your EC requests, the people who organise wellbeing support events during exam season, and the IT team that help you when you get stuck accessing Moodle.” This will make the impact much easier to understand than simply saying “phase1 is targeting administrative and professional services staff and phase2 targets academic and more admin and professional services staff”
Do I have to tell managers if I’m taking ASOS?
No, you are under no legal obligation to tell them. You are likely to receive emails from department leaders asking you to declare if you are taking part in ASOS, but you do not have to respond to these. In fact, by declaring this preemptively you would be giving the university leaders more opportunity to undermine your ASOS, essentially getting in your own way.
When approached directly, you should only confirm the action that you have taken in the past, and are taking that day, but should not identify if or how you intend to continue with ASOS in the future.
Am I protected when doing ASOS?
If you are a UCU member at the University of Nottingham and engage only in the types of ASOS agreed within the mandate (listed above) then you will be protected.
If you are not a union member, trade unions are not able to protect you. If you are a member of another trade union, you will need to follow the industrial action plans of that trade union. Please ensure you maintain ASOS within the activities described here and contact the branch (uonucubranch@gmail.com) if you have an idea for additional activity not listed so that we can check whether this is available to you within the mandate.
How can I expect UoN to respond to my ASOS?
With the goal of ASOS to cause disruption to normal service, the university is going to seek to mitigate that disruption. They may do this by pressuring your colleagues to take on additional workload to compensate for and undermine your action. The more people engaging with ASOS, the harder it will be able to redistribute this work to others. By sharing with your colleagues why you are engaging with ASOS, it can help them to understand the value of refusing and pushing back on redistributed work beyond the own individual benefits of only doing as much work as you have capacity for, even if they are not doing ASOS themselves.
You may also find university management pressuring you to complete work beyond your contracted duties or outside of hours, especially if this is common for you already. When you experience this, you can reiterate your reasons for engaging in ASOS, and that you are simply working to your contract to do your job without going above and beyond.
They may also deduct pay if your ASOS includes action that could be considered ‘partial performance’ of your contract
Can they deduct pay from me for doing ASOS?
In some cases, and dependent on the type of ASOS (eg Marking and Assessment Boycott and other targeted action that makes up a significant proportion of your job), the university has previously argued that staff participating are showing partial performance of their contracted duties, and therefore have partially revoked pay for the affected days regardless of other work completed. This only applies when the ASOS goes beyond ‘working to contract’. If you have had pay deducted for this reason, you are able to access the UCU fighting fund for financial support.
We recognise that some of the ASOS actions listed in our mandate would account for a large proportion of some members’ jobs such as some libraries staff working on REF and the finance teams coordinating the end of the financial year for example. Similarly in some, but not all schools, academic staff are mandated to attend graduation. It may be that non-attendance at graduation is perceived as partial performance, despite being a relatively small proportion of work roles, and one that is voluntary in some schools. Where this is the case for you and your role, and therefore you find yourself facing financial difficulties, please ensure you apply to our fighting fund. The branch has funds available to help alleviate financial hardship for members taking industrial action. Further details on how to apply and the rates of support will be shared by the branch shortly. In the meantime, note that you will need to provide payslips showing evidence of any deductions when you apply.
UoN management have not yet identified if it would do this, but it has for the MAB done in 2023. They have also not yet given details of what the scale of a deduction could be, as there is no standardised amount for this with different institutions taking different approaches. In 2023, there was a 50% deduction per day for the affected period from the pay of those taking part in the MAB but calculations of which days members took action were inconsistent and used incomplete data.
What if I am a migrant worker?
Due to immigration laws, migrant worker members should refer to the guidance for you on the UCU website to ensure any action you take is protected.
I’m finding it really difficult to say no to things and push back. What help and support can I get?
It is quite common for people to find taking any industrial action conflicting, especially if this is their first time doing so. You want to work hard and do a good job for yourself, and don’t want to see your already stressed colleagues being put under pressure to take on work you would have done normally, while instead you do ASOS. What is important to remember is that it is the university leadership putting that work onto your colleagues and applying the pressure, not you. It is their typical approach to workload management, and why they are currently under investigation by the Health and Safety Executive for putting our health and safety at risk with insufficient protections against excess workload.
To access support with confidently pushing back on excess work while undertaking ASOS, you can contact your department rep. Some departments also have opt-in group chats for local members, which can be a great source of connection and peer support with other members you know who are likely going through the same thing. Speak to your rep and other members in your area to look at joining one if you haven’t already. You might also find it useful to try the scripts we shared as part of ‘Just Say No’ from the Workload Health and Safety campaign.
The more you practice the phrases, the easier it will become. Some people prefer to do this in writing while others prefer to say it in conversation. If you feel pressured or intimidated to stop your ASOS contact your department rep in the first instance for support about addressing this informally, especially where multiple staff members are experiencing such intense pressure. If this appears to be a more targeted intimidation like victimisation or harassment, please submit a casework support request.
What can taking ASOS look like for me?
ASOS will look different depending on your job type, however there are some actions that everyone should be taking. More information can be found on the UCU website.
Everyone
- Remove work emails and MS teams apps from your personal phone and other personal devices. Continue to use your phone for multi-factor authentication
- Clock in and out only at your standard shift times during the working week, keeping to your contracted hours as a maximum.
- Take your full lunch break away from your work space
- When in a meeting, focus only on that meeting rather than answering emails and messages on the side
- Work at a steady pace that allows you to take the necessary time to consider what you are working on, without feeling rushed
- If you have only half-completed a task at the end of the day, leave it for the next working day rather than staying on a few minutes to get it done
- If you also engage in strike, do not share your materials with colleagues or students preemptively or on your return. This only undermines the action you are taking.
- If your colleague is off work sick, on holiday, striking or otherwise away from work, do not complete their tasks in their absence.
- If there is a role or responsibility in your team that has not been filled after someone has left, do not complete the tasks that were associated with that role that are not directly within your own contract.
Teaching
- Developing your classes only within the time available to you around other responsibilities
- Completing assessment activity within your job role as an educator – for example not transferring grades from moodle to a campus marksheet and similar administrative tasks around assessment
- Not attending graduation ceremonies to represent the university on the stage
- Not completing admin work associated with timetabling for modules that you lead or teach on
- Not rescheduling or providing compensatory resources/activity for classes or meetings missed during strike action
- Not providing work for roles that do not get time accounted for in your workload planner such as deputy module leadership
Research
- Not travelling to undertake research or dissemination activity during your personal time
- Refuse to use any personal devices or self-funded software or devices to undertake data collection, transcription or other work related activity
- Do not provide peer-reviews for journals unpaid
- Do not participate in external committees, advisory boards or partnership meetings unless they are part of your contracted responsibilities
- Do not undertake research administration tasks that are outside of your own contracted responsibilities
APM
- Refuse voluntary activities like participating in away days, surveys, consultations and other events that fall outside of your contracted role and responsibilities
- Do not complete administrative work related to the financial year end, timetabling, REF, university rankings or Future Nottingham
- Do not reschedule events or classes cancelled due to strike action
- Decline tasks and responsibilities beyond your grade as defined by your contract
- Adhere to official notice periods for any rescheduling of meetings cancelled/postponed for reasons outside of industrial action. This could include strictly adhering to inclusive meeting practices for notice of new times
- Do not fast track any processes to make exceptions for a late submission of information
The UCU website has further information on ASOS for APM members.
But if I can’t use my personal device for work, what if I need to use multi-factor authentication (MFA)?
The action of not using your personal device for work is primarily about not doing work outside of your working day. For example, not checking emails on your phone or responding to a teams invite while away from your work space. If your employer hasn’t provided you with adequate tech resources to do your job well, then do not compensate for this with resources you have funded and sourced yourself in order to complete your work to a sufficient standard.
If you need to use MFA to authenticate your access to work software (eg microsoft), as part of ASOS we recommend that you set this up through employer provided devices by following the instructions they provide, and contacting IT support if this requires their assistance
