Staff at the University of Liverpool who are planning to go on strike over pensions are being threatened with having their pay withheld.
Union members from the University and College Union (UCU) are due to begin the strike on Monday 24th November with nearly 1,000 participants planning on not turning up for work.
This is despite staff being sent an “aggressively worded” email from the University which threatened to discipline members with the docking of pay.
Martyn Moss, the Union’s North West Regional Official, spoke to JMU Journalism about the impending action, he said: “Our members are taking part in legitimate action.
“Unfortunately the university, in a very intimidating act, sought to stop our members from participating in that legitimate and lawful industrial action by withholding all of their pay.”
Currently there is an ongoing assessment boycott which started last week where staff members are refusing to set coursework, mark any work or give feedback to their students, although they are still going into work.
The full academic boycott on Monday is something which Moss said the union would rather avoid but claims it is in the hands of the University. He said: “It can be resolved by the university withdrawing the threat of 100% deductions of pay, and there are no signs of them doing that at this moment in time.”
Students who are currently affected by the assessment strikes are set for more disruption as lectures and seminars are set to be cancelled next week with no indication when the issue will be resolved. Martyn Moss added: “The impact on students is unfortunate, but in our view it could have been entirely avoided by the university taking a much more reasonable approach.”
Members of the Union who have taken part in the assessment boycott have had their pay docked from 13th November.
Other universities who are taking this type of action include the University of East Anglia and the University of Surrey. The University of York also announced it would deduct full pay however has since agreed to review that decision.