Student Update: UCU industrial action

A message from Professor Julia Clarke, Deputy Vice-Chancellor. 

Dear students 

As you may have seen reported in the press, the University and College Union (UCU) has announced national strike action will take place on Thursday 24, Friday 25, and Wednesday 30 November 2022. This means that staff at over 150 universities across the country will be taking action, including potentially those staff at the University of Wolverhampton who are members of UCU. 

We recognise the right of colleagues to take this action but are concerned about the potential impact on our whole community, particularly you – our students. Some academic staff may participate in strike action and others will not. Staff who are planning to strike are not required to inform the University. This makes it very difficult for the University to plan for and to communicate effectively with students.  

The University will remain open throughout the strike action – our aim is for activities and facilities to run as close to a regular service as possible. There may be, however, an impact on your teaching or research supervision on strike days. 

UCU members have also voted to take ‘action short of a strike,’ which means that participating staff will work to their contractual hours only and will not take on any additional or voluntary work. This will also include not rescheduling lectures or classes cancelled due to strike action and not sharing material online for any cancelled learning activities. Action short of a strike will begin on Wednesday, 23 November, and could last until Thursday, 20 April 2023. 

We recognise that this uncertainty may be unsettling, but we will do everything that we can to minimise the impact of the strike action on your studies, research, and wider experience. We will endeavour to ensure that we communicate as quickly as possible with you if any of your teaching is cancelled and how we will support you in managing any missed learning.  

Support for students 

If you need to access help or wellbeing support, ASK@WLV should be the first point of call. The easiest way to contact them is by logging a help call in e:Vision. You can also call 01902 518 518 and speak to someone on campus at an ASK@WLV help desk. Find out more here: www.wlv.ac.uk/ask.    

Find out more about the student support services available here: www.wlv.ac.uk/support.    

Thank you and take care.  

Professor Julia Clarke  

Deputy Vice-Chancellor