Queen Mary University of London, a member of the prestigious Russell Group, has been branded the “worst university employer in the UK” after it withheld 100% of the wages of staff taking part in a national marking boycott in protest at pay and working conditions.
The University and College Union (UCU) says more than 100 staff members at Queen Mary were left panicking about how to pay rent and bills this month after the university deducted full pay for 21 days in their July pay cheques, because they refused to mark students’ work in June. The union says many staff opened payslips with nothing in them, although they still carried out the “vast majority” of their duties including teaching and research. The university is threatening 100% deductions for partial work again in August.
Following national walkouts earlier in the year, 19 universities were hit by a marking boycott at the end of May. Many of these, including Sheffield, Leeds, Nottingham, Brighton, Dundee and Westminster, joined Queen Mary in threatening to dock full pay for partial performance. But UCU says no other university has ever followed through on these threats.
Jo Grady, UCU’s general secretary, said Queen Mary’s senior management had “launched a vindictive attack” on its members, “punishing them for taking part in lawful industrial action” and “cementing its reputation as the worst university employer in the UK”.
She said: “It is wrong to do this at any time and all the more deplorable as staff struggle to make ends meet in a cost of living crisis.”
The move sparked panic among academics at other universities. With Liz Truss and fellow Tory leadership candidate Rishi Sunak both promising to crack down on trade unions, they fear this could set a dangerous precedent for crushing industrial action in higher education. A GoFundMe page to support strikers who have lost their pay has notched up nearly £60,000 in donations.
A young researcher in Queen Mary’s film department, who asked not to be named in case of repercussions from management, said: “When people started getting these pay deductions they were freaking out. There was a lot of anger and confusion. We love our jobs but this is bullying. It’s really distressing because you’ve been working really hard even without doing the marking and you discover when you open your payslip that you’ve inadvertently worked for free.”
Dr Kate Hall, a lecturer in politics and international relations at Queen Mary who had her pay docked, said “coping without 21 days of pay is extraordinarily difficult”.
She said the prospect of losing 42 days’ pay over the whole summer was “so scary”, but insisted academics would not back down. “This has strengthened our resolve as it’s such an extreme response to staff asking for a more sustainable environment to work in.”
Miri Rubin, professor of history at Queen Mary, tweeted: “It is like being slapped in the face: in the three – now unpaid – weeks, I directed research, supervised PhDs, advised undergraduates, sat on 2 appointment panels, chaired a school viva, conducted appraisals, and marked all scripts required for our finalists to graduate”.
Laura Gray Blair, a PhD student who also teaches at the college, said she understood the stress the boycott had caused undergraduates in her department. “I tried to be clear with them that the situation staff are in isn’t sustainable. They are mostly being taught by people on temporary contracts who don’t know if they will have a job next year.”
Blair said staff taking part in the boycott had continued to teach and support students in June despite the university warning they wouldn’t be paid. “We did it because we care about our students and many of us couldn’t believe senior management would carry through such a damaging action,” she added.
One final-year film student, who asked not to be named, said students did not trust feedback from anonymous replacement markers. “The quality of some of the feedback has been atrocious. Sometimes students have just got one word,” he said.
Students who knew about staff having their pay docked were “shocked”, he said. “It seems so cruel. How are lecturers who can’t afford food or rent going to deliver world-class education to us?”
A spokesperson for Queen Mary said the impact of the action had been “limited”. “The vast majority of our 32,000 students remain unaffected. Out of a workforce of about 5,400 only 108 people had pay deducted as a result of partial performance in June.”
He said: “From the outset of national industrial action, our overriding priority has been to protect our students’ education. We have therefore asked staff to prioritise educational activities and deprioritise other work where needed.”
The spokesperson added that the university continued to negotiate but that UCU members “had yet to accept a reasonable agreement”.
Goldsmiths, University of London on Friday became one of the last institutions to sign an agreement ending its marking boycott. But a spokesperson said the university was “very sorry that 119 students didn’t receive their marks in time for our summer graduation ceremonies”.
He said all affected students would now receive their marks, with final-year and international students given priority, and the university would arrange later ceremonies as well as wellbeing support.
Nearly 4,000 international academics have signed a petition to reinstate Prof Des Freedman and Dr Gholam Khiabany, head and deputy head of Goldsmiths’ acclaimed department of media, communications and cultural studies, who were suspended after emailing students explaining they would be unable to graduate.
The university declined to comment on this.
