Strike deductions and financial support

How strike deductions work

For each day you go on strike, the university deducts 1/365th of your annual salary.

A few important things to know:

  • Deductions are made before tax, NI and pension contributions, so the impact on take-home pay is lower than the headline amount.
  • In practice, this means you do not lose the full 1/365th from your take-home pay because your taxable income is also reduced.
  • A rough estimate used here is that take-home pay falls by about 63% of the gross deduction amount after tax, NI and pension savings are taken into account.
  • Part-time staff are deducted based on their actual pro-rata salary.
  • If strike action takes place on a Friday and the following Monday, you are not deducted for Saturday or Sunday.
  • It is recognised that strike pay deductions can impact on some more than others (e.g. those with childcare costs, single income households, etc). If you have concerns about this please get in touch and we would always advise you to put a claim in to the national and local fund.

 

Applying to the National strike pay / fighting fund

UCU members can currently claim:

  • £75 per day if earning under £30,000
  • £50 per day if earning over £30,000

Strike pay is currently available from day 3 onwards.

Apply here (can only be claimed after ALL deductions have happened): https://my.ucu.org.uk/app/fighting_fund

Worked examples

Example 1: Grade 7, top of grade, part-time 0.5 FTE

·       Salary: £21,127

·       Daily deduction: £57.88

·       Strike fund payment: £75

Estimated take-home reduction after strike fund claim: £0*

*On days where strike fund is not available, the reduction in take-home pay is around: £57.88 × (1 − 0.37) ≈ £36.50 per day

 

Example 2: Grade 8, middle of grade, full-time

·       Salary: £50,253

·       Daily deduction: £137.67

·       Strike fund payment: £50

·       With strike fund support: £137.67 − £50 = £87.67

Estimated take-home reduction after strike fund claim: £87.67 × (1 − 0.37) ≈ £55.32 per day*

 

*On days where strike fund is not available, the reduction in take-home pay is around: £137.67 × (1 − 0.37) ≈ £86.86 per day

For more information see slides on Financial support for striking

UCU Hallam local strike fund

You need to apply first to the national UCU Fighting Fund for the full amount of 8 days available to SHU branch members – https://my.ucu.org.uk/app/answers/detail/a_id/561

Once you have applied to the national Fighting Fund, you can then apply to the local strike fund. The SHU UCU local strike fund has limited resources (grants normally below £200) to support members who are

  • on an atypical employment contract (eg zero hours contract, associate lecturer contract, part time/fractional contract)
  • facing hardship due to personal, family or exceptional circumstances
  • are currently at risk of redundancy

Again, you will have first needed to access or attempt to access the full 8 days available to SHU branch members from the national UCU Fighting Fund.

And please note – you should usually wait until the last deduction is made from any round of strike action and make a single claim to the local strike fund.

    If financial concerns are affecting your ability to strike, please apply.

    We have had strong donations to the local fund and want members to use it where needed.

    For more information on the local strike fund please see here

    Finally, we urge UEB to make different choices so that we do not need to take strike action.