Action short of strike (ASOS)

Published: 20th April, 2026

Action short of strike (ASOS)
At the March General meeting members voted to strengthen our Action Short of Strike which recommences on 27 April 2026 and resolved:
To mandate the officers and reps to campaign for all members to undertake all forms of ASOS listed above.
To hold meetings in all Schools and Departments where we have reps to discuss how we can use these forms of ASOS to increase pressure on management over redundancies.
Forms of our ASOS covered by our re-ballot include:
Not working beyond contractual obligations;
Not covering for absent colleagues or unfilled posts;
Not rescheduling or sharing materials from strike-affected sessions;
Not performing voluntary or out-of-grade duties;
Not using personal devices for university work;
Not participating in student recruitment activities;
Not participating in graduation related activities;
No admin work related to:
 REF,
Course reviews,
University rankings,
Timetabling,
Financial year end.
We encourage all members to meet with their reps (if you don’t have a rep for your area contact the branch so we can provide an officer/rep to support your discussions) to discuss how you can best implement the different forms of ASOS in your area. We acknowledge that some of the forms of ASOS might be a difficult for Professional Services members to implement, particularly if their role essentially dedicated to one of the activities lists, e.g., recruitment or timetabling. Hence, it is important for members to discuss this locally and consult with the branch for guidance where necessary.
Below we elaborate on each form of ASOS and provide some guidance on what they entail and initial suggestions for how these could be implemented. Please share with the branch the results of your local discussions so we can expand on these and share your suggestions with members across the branch.
Not working beyond contractual obligations
You can request a copy of your contract and job summary form from HR (these tend to be more generic for academic staff, compared to those for professional services staff). If you are asked to undertake work that you are not contracted to do, you should, in the first instance, tell your line manager that you are undertaking ASOS and so working to contract. If you come under pressure to do the work anyway, report it immediately to the UCU branch or your local UCU rep.
Note that while indeterminate hours means staff above grade 6 are not tied to working 37.5 hours/week, the University’s indeterminate hours guidance does specify that ‘Departments and Divisions will keep under review the working patterns of all staff to ensure that the hours worked are not excessive’. We therefore recommend staying close to the 37.5 hours during ASOS.
Not covering for absent colleagues or unfilled posts
If a colleague is off or a vacancy has not been filled, do not step in to complete their work. Typically, your manager would be seeking volunteers, hence, we suggest you do not volunteer or say no if asked.
Not rescheduling or sharing materials from strike-affected sessions
Senior management appear (following pressure from UCU members and disquiet from some Heads of School) to have retreated from early demands that all lost classes be rescheduled.
However, senior managers still consider refusal to respond to managerial instructions to reschedule, or to mitigate the impact of strike action in other ways, as a failure of staff to carry out their contractual duties in full. They have said that they will refuse this “partial performance”, and on that basis deduct the 2.5 days’ pay. Our response is as follows:
UCU members should not undermine their own action by breaching our declared Action Short of a Strike (ASOS). This includes: “Not rescheduling or sharing materials from strike-affected sessions.” This ASOS is ongoing.
In a minority of Schools there is little pressure on members to do anything to mitigate the impact of lost teaching.
Where members are put under pressure to reschedule, and rightly refuse to do so, we will explore using our Fighting Fund to help reduce the impact of pay deduction on them (though thus far there have been none). We should look to support them in any way possible.
In an earlier email sent by many Heads of School there are five options given: “(1) Reschedule in-person sessions… (2) Reschedule online sessions… (3) Consolidation – integrate the missed material into the next scheduled class or combine seminar/tutorial groups into larger groups to cover content efficiently. (4) Alternative resources – provide narrated slides, guided readings, structured independent learning activities, Panopto lecture recordings from the previous academic year…or asynchronous exercises via Blackboard. (5) Assessment support – offer revision sessions, Q&As, or drop-ins to ensure students are prepared for assessment.”
In our view, only (3) and (5) are potentially compatible with our ASOS, provided workloads are adjusted to prevent members working additional hours. Rescheduling teaching in-person or online, or providing alternatives such as recordings on annotated slides, would be a breach of our ASOS, undermining our action and potentially allowing the university to avoid compensating students.
UCU members can consider options (3) and (5) if they wish to do so to avoid pay deductions. In our opinion it is best if UCU members meet together in Schools to determine a collective approach. Branch senior officers are happy to discuss this with reps and members, as required. However, we should refuse requests to add additional Q&A sessions, office hours, drop-ins that are in effect mitigation for classes lost to strike action.
Members should refuse any request to state that they are no longer taking part in ASOS and should not fill in any form that says this. Our ASOS includes ongoing measures such as “working to contract” that even senior managers do not believe constitutes partial performance.
We should continue to speak to students, explaining our strike action and the threats against us.
Not performing voluntary or out-of-grade duties;
For instance, if invigilating exams, attending open days or graduation ceremonies are voluntary activity (not included in your contractual obligations) you should not volunteer for such activities while ASOS is under way. If such activities are part of your contract, and not taking place on strike days, you should continue to perform them. If an activity is not in your contract but you have a workload allocation for it, it might still be right to refuse the activity, thus breaching your contract, as part of our ASOS, but only if it is covered by one of the other ASOS bullet points.
Not using personal devices for university work;
Do not use personal devices to respond to emails or Teams messages
This is includes using personal devices for multi-factor authentication (MFA) when logging into university systems
Not participating in student recruitment activities;
Unless this is included in your contract, you should not volunteer for open/offer holder days or any activities associated with them
Not participating in graduation related activities;
Unless this is included in your contract, you should not volunteer to attend or support graduation events. We suggest that you can celebrate with your students outside of the official ceremony.
No admin work related to REF, Course reviews, University rankings, Timetabling, Financial year end.
This will mean different actions for different groups, we recommend that members meet to discuss how they can best implement these actions in their area.
REF – possible action: not providing data for mock REF exercise, not participating in output reviews, not uploading papers to IRIS, not working on impact case study
Course reviews – if this has not already happened, then don’t engage with any meetings or administrative tasks in relation to this
University rankings –
Timetabling – most of this has already happened, but do not submit any further requests for timetabling or respond to queries in relation to timetabling
Financial year end –