Reporting your strike action over USS
It is vital that your strike action is recorded, but please don’t record it in advance (recalling HQ instructions and the [USS Action FAQ]).
HR have required that we report strike action from Thursday 22nd to Wednesday 28th February by March 1st (and so on, each time the first day back after striking). They will no doubt be watching closely to see whether members are observing the strike. So, despite onerous mechanisms, let’s send a clear signal that we are united as a Union in support of our pensions. The clearer and louder this message is, the more likely it is that employers will return to negotiations.
We raised members’ serious concerns over the stipulations made by management that each “batch” of strike action be recorded on the days between those batches (incredibly tight timescales) in a formal letter to HR [click here]. It was addressed today in a meeting with the Vice Chancellor and both the Director and Deputy Director of HR. The Director of HR made it clear that they have put these stipulations in place to make it easier for them to “plan” and that this is nothing to do with the technicalities of making payroll deductions (which are planned for the March payroll). This is very disappointing.
However, we note that HR have also supplied staff with an industrial action email address [industrialaction@
We also note that if you are working offsite, the SAP self-service won’t work (you need to be on a campus networked computer) and that the offsite self-service system (Citrix) doesn’t always work for everyone offsite (especially if using a tablet rather than a laptop or desktop).
We further note that it may be unreasonable to expect members who work part-time to report by the deadlines given, if those deadlines happen to fall on a non-working day. We would expect due consideration to be given in these circumstances.
For example you might wish to email if:
- The SAP self-service system is not working for you when you try to use it (noting that it appeared to have crashed / not load for some members after the last strike action)
- You are offsite (e.g. for a training course, in archives somewhere off-campus, at a conference) and cannot get the self-service (Citrix) app to work
- You are part time and/or hourly paid and want to make sure the correct deductions are logged for the days of strike
- You have complicated working patterns and/or multiple roles to explain in your strike reportingYou have used the system to report but are unsure if your strike report has recorded properly in any way
We urge you to only report the strike action you have taken up to each reporting point.
This page was last updated on 21 February 2018