UK higher education institutions should stagger pay deductions and ensure staff have a “reasonable workload” in return for academics bringing their marking and assessment boycott to an end, the Universities and Colleges Employers Association (Ucea) has recommended.
Outlining an offer aimed at ensuring the remaining students still impacted by the boycott receive their final grades, Ucea has stopped short of instructing institutions to return pay deductions taken from those participating – a key demand of the University and College Union (UCU) – because this would be “unfair to the many staff who have worked tirelessly to mitigate its impact”.
Instead, the employer body said it would recommend to institutions that any planned pay deductions that have not yet been withheld be staggered over a longer period of time to “ease the financial impact on UCU members”.
And universities should “recognise the pre-booked leave arrangements of staff and the importance of having a reasonable workload upon the resumption of normal working”.
