UCU Edinburgh Hardship Fund

This guidance changes periodically and you should read it all, even if you have recently claimed.

Please attach all the evidence we require, or your claim will be delayed. UCU Edinburgh’s Treasurer, Jo Edge, only works for the branch on Fridays, and so it could be as long as week before new evidence can be taken into account and your claim processed.

The Branch does not have the capacity to notify members when claims have been accepted, so please do check your bank account before enquiring about your claim. See below for:

• September 2023 strike days

• MAB claims

• Spring 2023 strike days

For information about the UCU Edinburgh MAB Solidarity Fundraiser campaign, please follow this link.

After you have read the guidance below, please apply to the local fund here (form opens in a new window).

September 2023 strike days

For hourly-paid staff

Please apply to the local fund for all the days of action you took.

We need to see the following pieces of evidence:

1.   Your grade and step. Please don’t send your payslip as this takes time to work out the hourly pay from! The best thing to send is a screenshot of your People and Money/Oracle record showing your grade and step or your contract of employment. We reimburse holiday pay at 18.6% automatically and know how much hourly pay with this included is, so you don’t need to work that out for us.

2.   The number of hours you lost. You could send us either course timetables showing your usual weekly working pattern, an email from your course organiser to confirm you missed X hours of work, or a screenshot of your previous timesheets showing the hours you usually work.

Where possible please claim for prep time from the University for a non-strike day. For example, if Thursday and Friday in the week you are claiming for were strike days, and you have 2 hours teaching on a Friday with 2 hours’ prep time, claim the 2 hours’ prep time for Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday and claim the 2 missed teaching hours from the fund. If your School pays you admin time for each class you teach, you will likely not be able to claim this for classes missed due to striking, so please include this in your claim to us.

For salaried staff

Please claim first from the UK-level fund which will pay out the following: 

• £50 per day for the third and subsequent days of strike action, for members who earn £30,000 or more p/a, up to a maximum of three days

• £75 per day for the third and subsequent days of strike action, for members who earn less than £30,000 p/a, up to a maximum of three days

In other words, the UK-level fund will pay out for days 3, 4, and 5 of the five days of strike action, for those who participated for the full five days.

Payslips are required as evidence of deductions. More information and application portal here.

Salaried staff can then claim for the first two days of strike action from the local fund (form opens in a new window).

Marking and Assessment Boycott

For hourly-paid staff

We fully reimburse lost marking pay for GH staff taking part in the MAB.

Please apply here. We need to see four piece of evidence:

1.   Your grade and step. Please don’t send your payslip as this takes time to work out the hourly pay from! The best thing to send is a screenshot of your People and Money/Oracle record showing your grade and step or your contract of employment. We reimburse holiday pay at 18.6% automatically and know how much hourly pay with this included is, so you don’t need to work that out for us.

2.   Evidence of how may assignments you were due to mark.

3.   Evidence of the reimbursement rate per assignment (e.g. 45 minutes per script).

4.   Evidence that you are taking part in the MAB.

In many cases the easiest thing is to send an email to your CO asking them to confirm what is in your application (e.g. ‘Dear XXX, could you please confirm that I would have marked 12 scripts at 30 minutes per script’) and the upload the email as evidence. Alternatively, you can take screenshots of emails advising you that scripts are ready for collection, or that essays are attached or available on Feedback Studio. In most cases, your School website should have available reimbursement rates per assignment.

For salaried staff

Salaried staff should apply to the UK-level UCU Fighting Fund in the first instance. You can claim up to nine days in total from the UK-level fund, beginning from the second day of deductions.For example, if your MAB deductions began on 01 May, you could claim from 02 May onwards up to and including nine days, that is, to 10 May.

To apply to the UK-level fund, log in to your UCU account, and then follow this link to the application portal. You will need your payslip to show evidence of the deductions. You will be able to claim £30 per day if you earn over £30,000 p/an and up to £45 per day if you earn under £30,000 p/a. Further information is available here (opens pdf). If your claim is urgent, you can tick ‘special circumstances’ for your application to be prioritised.

Once you have made your claim from the UK-level fighting fund, please then apply to the UCUE Local Hardship Fund to ‘top up’ your claim.

To apply for the Local Hardship Fund, follow this link to the application portal (opens in Microsoft forms, please ensure you are logged into your staff account). You should send us your June payslip showing deductions and your May payslip as evidence of your usual take-home pay. We cannot process claims in advance of the deductions being made. Be clear about the number of days you wish to claim for on the form. Please only claim for the minimum number of days you require. For the Local Hardship Fund, your claim will be capped at £25 per day if you earn over £30,000 and at £37.50 per day if you earn under £30,000.

Special circumstances will be taken into account if you need to claim above the cap, and you should upload proof of these special circumstances e.g. childcare bill or fixed-term contract. (Please note, we do not require proof of disability, simply stating that you are disabled will be enough.)

Spring 2023 strike days

For salaried staff

Please claim from the UK-level fund which now pays out from the second day of action onwards.

Once you have done this and have been remunerated, if you have special circumstances (e.g. fixed-term contract, childcare) please apply to the local fund for the first day’s pay and/or top up pay beyond the UK-level daily cap (for example if you earn £87 a day and the UK-level cap is £50, you can apply for the £37 difference per day from the local fund. This will be awarded at our discretion, where funds permit).

When you apply to the local fund, send the remittance slip you have received from the UK-level fund to show how much you’ve been awarded from there. Please let us know if you are applying for the first day’s pay at £50, or complete top up pay. Where possible please also send evidence of special circumstances, e.g. childcare bill.

For hourly-paid staff

Please apply to the local fund for all the days of action you took.

We need to see two pieces of evidence:

1.   Your grade and step. Please don’t send your payslip as this takes time to work out the hourly pay from! The best thing to send is a screenshot of your People and Money/Oracle record showing your grade and step or your contract of employment. We reimburse holiday pay at 18.6% automatically and know how much hourly pay with this included is, so you don’t need to work that out for us.

2.   The number of hours you lost. You could send us either course timetables showing your usual weekly working pattern, an email from your course organiser to confirm you missed X hours of work, or a screenshot of your previous timesheets showing the hours you usually work.

Where possible please claim for prep time from the University for a non-strike day. For example, if Thursday and Friday in the week you are claiming for were strike days, and you have 2 hours teaching on a Friday with 2 hours’ prep time, claim the 2 hours’ prep time for Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday and claim the 2 missed teaching hours from the fund.

Still have questions? Email Jo Edge, ucu.treasurer@ed.ac.uk.