Action short of a strike

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Christopher Gutteridge

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Dec 13, 2014, 7:09:39 AM12/13/14
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An interesting story for ac.uk sysprogs. I am part of the UCU union
which recently requested members refuse any work related to student
assessment. For this reason I refused (very apologetically) all support
requests regarding the student electronic coursework system I built. In
each refusal I explained the reason and asked them to talk to senior
management if it caused them a problem.

So far as I can tell, this managed to worry people quite high up at the
university.

Imagine the impact of all IT staff at every university withholding
labour for a single day... Imagine a sysprogs union...

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Christopher Gutteridge -- http://users.ecs.soton.ac.uk/cjg

University of Southampton Open Data Service: http://data.southampton.ac.uk/
You should read the ECS Web Team blog: http://blogs.ecs.soton.ac.uk/webteam/

Giuseppe Sollazzo

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Dec 13, 2014, 12:18:00 PM12/13/14
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Hi Chris,
this is interesting. 

I'm a member of Unite and unaware of this campaign by UCU. Can you provide some background?


Thanks,
Giuseppe

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Giuseppe Sollazzo

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Member of the Health and Social Care Transparency Panel (Department of Health)


Christopher Gutteridge

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Dec 15, 2014, 5:41:52 AM12/15/14
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The USS pension scheme deal has been changed. It's going to hit me hard. I've paid 17  years of contributions which should entitle me to 17/80ths of my final salary. It's just been redefined as my *current* salary and then will be adjusted for inflation or 5% per year whichever is lower. Assuming I work another 30 years and that the 'inflation' estimate is a smidge under, that's going to hit me pretty hard.

The UCU union is primarily academic staff. The most effective sanction academic staff is not to mark work as that can delay students getting marks, and even final results. It's horrid but delaying research doesn't have the same immediate impact.

http://defenduss.web.ucu.org.uk/




On 13/12/14 17:17, Giuseppe Sollazzo wrote:
Hi Chris,
this is interesting. 

I'm a member of Unite and unaware of this campaign by UCU. Can you provide some background?


Thanks,
Giuseppe
On Sat, Dec 13, 2014 at 12:09 PM, Christopher Gutteridge <c...@ecs.soton.ac.uk> wrote:
An interesting story for ac.uk sysprogs. I am part of the UCU union which recently requested members refuse any work related to student assessment. For this reason I refused (very apologetically) all support requests regarding the student electronic coursework system I built. In each refusal I explained the reason and asked them to talk to senior management if it caused them a problem.

So far as I can tell, this managed to worry people quite high up at the university.

Imagine the impact of all IT staff at every university withholding labour for a single day... Imagine a sysprogs union...


--
Christopher Gutteridge -- http://users.ecs.soton.ac.uk/cjg

University of Southampton Open Data Service: http://data.southampton.ac.uk/
You should read the ECS Web Team blog: http://blogs.ecs.soton.ac.uk/webteam/

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--
Giuseppe Sollazzo

Member of the Open Data User Group (Cabinet Office)
Member of the Health and Social Care Transparency Panel (Department of Health)


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Giuseppe Sollazzo

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Dec 15, 2014, 5:44:58 AM12/15/14
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Ah, I see. I'm aware of the proposed changes to USS but not about the UCU campaign. I think there's a need for more cross-unions communications :-)

Thanks for the summary!
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