Open letter submitted to Provost requesting higher strike compensation for students
Source: UCL Imagestore
Vanessa Tsao reports on the cross-faculty request for greater compensation due to the ongoing UCU strikes.
An open letter to the provost asking for higher compensation for the current UCU strikes was submitted to the Provost on Friday 6th March. The letter was initiated by Lorenzo Faggiano, the faculty representative for the Social & Historical Sciences, and it was signed by over 300 UCL academic representatives.
The letter demands “FAIR compensation for ALL students affected” by strikes, explaining that the compensation should be proportional to the academic fees paid for the missed strike days, which equals approximately 14% of the annual fee. As such, this amounts to £1295 for UK/EU undergraduate students and £3360 for international undergraduate students.
This is in contrast to last term’s Learning Opportunities Fund, which offered to refund students who were affected by the UCU strikes which took place between 25th November and 4th December. This was capped at £250, and students were not guaranteed that they would be compensated, as they had to apply for the fund and propose how they intended to use the funds.
Some students had their application rejected, with the committee stating in the email that the application did not meet their criteria. The committee rejected applications asking for “assistance with UCL tuition fees, travel costs, future research projects and data gathering.” Instead, the proposals had to include “additional books and journals covering the subject, engaging a tutor, undertaking relevant online learning that covers the course material.”
Given that this specific criteria was not clearly stated on the Learning Opportunities Fund’s webpage, students may have felt uncertain about how to write a proposal that would be approved; resulting in some students receiving little or no compensation, despite being affected by the strikes.
An anonymous UCLove Facebook post asking how much students received from the Learning Opportunities Fund commented that “it’s outrageous they are trying to give us all different amounts of compensation when we all missed the same amount of teaching.” One student remarked: “I wonder why they don't give us the fund based on how many lectures we missed,” as students discussed the varying amounts they received and tried to understand how the proposals were approved in the comments section.
Although it was mainly signed by academic representatives, Lorenzo emphasises that all students should support this open letter, and suggests that they can put further pressure on the Provost by emailing him. “This is especially important given the likelihood of a shutdown in the next few days due to the coronavirus”, he commented; “it’s important that all students get a higher compensation.”