What does MAB include?
Anything related to marking assessment: no marking, but also no invigilation, no supervision of dissertations, no release of marks*.
- Marking summative assessments
- Giving feedback comments or grades to summative and formative work
- Assessment tutorials and supervision
- Transferring submitted marks into marksheets
- Uploading marks to campus
- Arranging 2nd attempt assessments
- Reviewing EC requests
- Moderation
- Answering queries about the assessment from students and colleagues besides directing students requiring support to wellbeing services or the EC process
*This includes coursework, even if it is partly marked because the deadline came before the start of MAB, but the release of marks came after.
What about dissertation supervsion for PGT students?
These cannot entirely be classed as assessment. We encourage members to continue to meet with students, provided that assessment does not occur.
Does the MAB include Extenuating Circumstances requests?
Yes. Extenuating Circumstances requests are an important part of the assessment and marking process and therefore we urge you to not participate in any administrative tasks relating to Extenuating Circumstances. Exams Officers have told us that this will be very disruptive when it comes to Exams Boards, so this is important action to take.
UCU is campaigning hard to inform students of the reasons why we are having to now take MAB action. We are also letting students know of the impacts the planned SSRs will have on their quality of teaching, student experience and wellbeing. Our action is short term pain for longer term gain for us and for our students.
Nonetheless, we encourage members to direct students to information on Extenuating Circumstances if they request this, as well as well-being and support services.
What if my job doesn’t involve assessment related work?
Please donate to the solidarity fund to financially support your colleagues who are undertaking the MAB; full details are included in this email. Ensure you do not undermine MABing colleagues by accepting any marking or assessment work that is reassigned to you, and encourage colleagues to do the same.
How could I discuss this with my colleagues?
Begin by identifying why you are taking part and explain that there have been many attempts to discuss and constructively challenge the FN business case that have been ignored by management, resulting in the need for escalation to MAB.
Identify the impact of participating on you: likely deductions despite completing the remaining majority of your workload and the moral injury of impacting students. Reiterate that the increased SSR will have significant long-term impacts for staff and students.
Ask they do not undermine your actions, e.g. by covering your incomplete marking.
How do people refuse to take on marking re-assigned to them?
Staff members should comply with reasonable requests from Line Managers. But staff should cite other workload duties, or lack of expertise in their area – due to these issues, this request may be unreasonable.
Do not use an Out Of Office/Auto Reply to declare ASOS or MAB participation. HR have indicated this will be used as evidence for pay deduction. (Looking at developing an email template to use if asked by a line manager about MAB participation)
Finally, contact the External Examiner, making them aware of contingency regulations should they be put in place for your module (an email template is being developed for this by the Reps network).
How do I talk to students about the MAB
As with colleagues, explain what has caused the dispute and how alternatives have been ignored, and explain the impact on you and on them: SSR is a clear, tangible metric all students can relate to and imagine the impact of
Make clear that we do not want to disrupt them, but other options like negotiations and alternative proposals have been ignored by management so it leaves this sort of disruptive escalation as the final way to make ourselves heard.
Ask students to write to the Vice Chancellor and members of University Exec Board. Their names and emails are on the UEB page of the UoN website. Additionally, invite students to raise their concerns to student’s union.
Finally, invite students to raise Level 1 complaints should they receive marks derived from contingency regulations, and/or if there is inequity in how students within a module are assessed or supported.
Has the MAB in summer 2023 not shown that MABs do not work? Why should we pursue this tactic?
The UK-wide MAB in 2023 did not achieve all its objectives, as individual employers hid behind the national employers’ association UCEA, arguing that they cannot make concessions independently.
However, at the local level we prevented management from deducting salary in a second round of punitive deductions. Moreover, we had been extremely successful at fundraising substantial amounts of hardship finance, allowing us to make large payouts to members.
Similar to the MAB in 2022, the MAB in summer 2026 will be a local MAB confronting our management alone. Our local MAB in 2022 was a success for precisely that reason. We saw then, in our negotiations, how much management hated a MAB, especially when the responsibility for bringing it to an end rests with them. Management in the end made significant concessions without any pay lost.
The assessments have already been submitted and I have marked some. What does this mean for MAB?
Discontinue marking from midday on 20th May, wherever you have got to in your normal workload distribution. Inconsistent or partially complete marking will be more chaotic in many cases than marking that is all incomplete for a marker or a module. Inconsistent marking will also result in students being impacted differently by contingency plans, which could undermine those contingencies in relation to quality assurance creating further chaos to be managed by senior leadership
Management’s contingency regulations will ensure that a MAB will be toothless.
Yes, contingency regulations can be and probably will be invoked again by our management, as they have done in 2023. It will allow them to award module marks as part for whole. A module in which the first item of assessment is completed and even if it only counts for 40 per cent of the overall mark could be upgraded to the full mark of that module. Before management can do so, however, they first need to get approval from Senate. This is anything but inevitable. The balance on Senate has changed and especially elected Senate members are highly likely to oppose this.
Moreover, the very fact that management has gone through the effort of drawing up contingency regulations indicates that a MAB represents a meaningful threat. These regulations exist because withdrawing your labour from assessments is emphatically a highly effective cause of disruption.
Finally, even if management successfully invokes contingency regulations, implementing them in practice is an all together different challenge. Due to APM job cuts, even the minor assessment problems resulting from strike action in September and October 2025 could not yet be mitigated. This has been postponed until the summer term 2026. A full MAB then will completely upend UoN’s assessment regime.
A MAB cannot work because not everybody will participate. Many colleagues are not UCU members and even some who are, will not take the necessary action.
Our understanding is that members in many Schools are keen on implementing a MAB. However, even if the implementation is uneven across the various units of the university, the disruption of the assessment process will be drastic. As management only knows very late, whether a particular colleague has participated or not, i.e. the date when the marks are due, the MAB will cause maximum confusion.
What financial support is there for me?
National UCU fighting fund: UCU have committed to £50/day from the 3rd day of action for up to 8 days total (£400). This rate is £75/day for anyone earning <£30k/year
Local solidarity fund: Up to £500 across the MAB period set. If the MAB is cut short, this is £20/day up to £500
We aim to increase the local support through donations from members not MABing, and other supporters. We recommend donating 25% of your take home pay to support those who MAB.
I am not participating in a MAB of final year students, as I am concerned about those students’ mental health and future careers.
This attitude, while understandable at some level, is exactly what management will rely on. They ‘trust’ our ‘obligation’ to students to ensure that the MAB will fail. We must not fall into this trap!
Please pause and also consider the mental health and future careers of your colleagues, who fall victim to the university’s large scale cuts. Academic jobs are rare, especially at this point in time. All of us feel very lucky to have found a permanent job working in the area we love. But many of us working in the sector also feel like there is nowhere else for us to go. Those who are made redundant will not just face the financial crisis associated with a lost livelihood, but a crisis of purpose. Furthermore, the small handful who manage to stay in academia and find jobs elsewhere will have to move to new cities, possibly even new countries, uprooting their entire family in the process. Or worse, accepting that they will have to live away from their families.
Finally, we need to remember that students will always receive their grades in the end, as soon as the MAB is resolved. At worst, the graduation ceremony may not be possible, a public relations disaster for management, but not future career threatening for students. Ultimately, it is management’s responsibility, if students are unable to graduate in the planned timescale.
How long will the action last (ie what would it take to lift the MAB)? And what happens once it is lifted?
We will have more details when the time comes, it depends on where in the assessment calendar we are when this happens. You will likely be asked to complete any incomplete assessment tasks, like marking, moderation or inputting grades.
You should ask your line manager to identify what to prioritise out of assessment related tasks and other work, highlighting the ongoing impact of the action. Ensure External Examiners are aware of the impacts of action taken on inconsistency between assessment of students.
How will they know I have taken part in the MAB?
If you announce that you are engaging in the MAB, i.e. through an out of office reply. Thus we are not recommending members set an Out of Office email.
Otherwise management will know when they find marks not submitted at the deadline, however management should confirm if these are incomplete or simply late. You do not have to declare participation in any industrial action until after the fact. However, you will need to declare past participation once the action has completed.
Can I mark the assessments and just withhold the marks?
We cannot mark scripts and then withhold the marks. Any marks on university systems are the property of the university. How individual colleagues manage marks off the system is another issue and nothing we as a union can comment on.
If you choose to use your time assessing work, be sure to make any notes on paper kept at home. Be aware that this work may be duplicated by a colleague undermining you or potential contingency regulations.
Why are we doing this?
To win. To defend each other. To defend our current and future students. To defend the University. To defend ourselves. Taking part in Industrial Action is the tool we have to place pressure on management to enter into meaningful negotiations with us.
Getting management into the room requires pressure, keeping them in the room and willing to relent on job cuts, course closures, cuts to research, or hiking SSRs requires sustained pressure. The MAB is the tool we have right now to provide this pressure on management. If they were not afraid of it, they would not threaten us with deducted pay.
Last Updated on May 19, 2026 by L Scott Blankenship
