How University of Edinburgh management can avoid a marking boycott: UCU Edinburgh’s response to the punitive 100% pay deductions
Negotiations between UCU Edinburgh (UCUE) and the University of Edinburgh Senior Leadership Team (SLT) have so far not resulted in any change to the employer's plans to cut £92m from its staffing budget.
UCUE is therefore disappointed but not surprised that the employer has announced their intention to impose 100% pay deductions for members participating in the declared Marking and Assessment Boycott (MAB). This punitive response is a clear sign that the SLT is deeply unnerved by the power of a MAB.
While UCUE had the ability to declare MAB earlier, our negotiators chose to postpone the commencement of MAB until 1 May, giving the employer the full 14 days’ notice they had asked for (instead of the legal minimum of 10 days), in the hope that a negotiation meeting scheduled for 30 April would produce positive results.
The SLT’s decision to announce 100% deductions before that negotiation meeting shows that management does not value such goodwill gestures.
In meetings on 15 and 22 April 2026, UCUE negotiators presented the SLT with 7 concrete and reasonable asks in our dispute over the current cost-saving exercise, with a view to avoiding a MAB:
1. No compulsory redundancies – at the very least, a commitment to a set period in which no ‘at risk of redundancy’ notices will be served.
2. A halt on ‘hidden redundancies’ – specifically, no further cuts to Guaranteed Hours tutor and demonstrator budgets.
3. Precise figures on how many ‘open-ended with review date’ contracts have ended during the cost-cutting exercise, and evidence-based assurances that proper consultation for these has occurred in line with current policy. We also urged commencement of the overdue joint review of the 2019 Collective Agreement, scheduled for 2024, which sought proper pay, training and more job security for casualised staff.
4. Evidence of efforts to prioritise a greater share of savings from non-staff costs than was announced in February 2025 (with a disproportionate £92m out of a total £140m reduction to come from the salaries budget) and savings figures already achieved from non-staff and staff cuts respectively.
5. Reduction of the overly high target for EBITDA surplus, which was increased in 2024 (from 9% to 11%, which represents around £30m).
6. Evidence of action already taken to exhaust non-staff sources for budget savings before considering staff cuts, and commitment to continuing these efforts with unions in the room.
7. Agreement with unions on a robust policy for avoiding redundancies, including a shared definition of meaningful consultation, based on the draft UCUE shared with the SLT in February 2026.
UCUE negotiators have informed the employer that, in the absence of movement on the above points, our members have no choice but to undertake a MAB, given that a wave of redundancies is expected to be announced imminently.
In its communications to staff and students, the SLT repeatedly accuses UCUE of ‘deliberately and overtly targeting our students’. Students know very well that it is the SLT’s cost-cutting exercise that targets their education; its likely consequences are to gut programmes, reduce contact time with staff, further increase staff workload, and degrade the quality of students' education.
Past experience suggests that the only thing that motivates the SLT to negotiate seriously with staff unions is a threat to student degrees – never mind the quality of the education those degrees are meant to represent.
But student solidarity with the union is strong. Students know the cuts have been rejected by the Staff Senate and the staff unions. UCUE continues to receive messages of solidarity and support from students – they know that staff working conditions are student learning conditions, and they know that union members are fighting for their education and the value of their degrees as an integral part of this dispute.
Tellingly, the SLT chose not to reveal to students its intention to impose 100% deductions on staff participating in the MAB (email to students from Lucy Evans, ‘Update on industrial action and how it might affect you’, 22 April 2026). The SLT has said that staff who are not being paid will ‘not be obliged to carry out other work’ (email to staff from James Saville, ‘Update on industrial action, April 2026’, 22 April 2026). This effectively amounts to a lock-out of members who choose to engage in legitimate industrial action short of a strike.
In the 22 April meeting with the SLT, UCUE negotiators conveyed that the planned punitive 100% pay deductions to staff undertaking a MAB will harm students, given the potential impact of a lock-out on essential work over the summer, including student supervision for MSc students completing dissertations.
UCUE members and local organisers have a detailed, sustainable plan to support and protect members who join the MAB. UCUE has been building up our funds in the expectation of this kind of draconian response. We will not be cowed by this threat.
A MAB can still be avoided, should the SLT want it. We eagerly await the SLT’s response to our 7 asks. The ball is in their court.
