If you wish to submit a complaint to the University in regard to the strikes, Birkbeck Student Union Support Service will be available to provide tailored support to you. You can find out more about submitting a complaint below.

The BBKSU Support Service is impartial, free and confidential for current Birkbeck students.  
To find out more information on the Support Service, see here: https://www.birkbeckunion.org/bbksu-support. 
We aim to support your interests and gain the best possible outcome for you by helping you make the right choices.    

We are aware that the national strike action will impact the majority of students and whilst there is no recourse to automatically receive any refund/reduction in tuition fees, students do have the option to submit a formal complaint to the university.  

The Complaints Policy is available here (Student policies 2022-23 — Birkbeck, University of London (bbk.ac.uk)) and we encourage students to read this thoroughly before deciding to submit under this policy. As you will see, the university expects students to have attempted to reach an ‘informal resolution’ directly with their Department before submitting a formal complaint and so this is something we would advise you to do as soon as you can. Your teaching Department may be in a position to provide you with an acceptable solution to the issues you are facing without having to go through the above process. You are also able to submit your complaint as a group if the issues being faced are the same for more than one individual.   

Students should be aware that complaints can take months to investigate as they are assessed on a case-by-case basis and so you should be prepared to wait up to 6 months for a response depending on how busy the team dealing with these applications is. 

If you do decide to submit a formal complaint, then the SU Support Team are able to review anything you plan to submit and provide you with feedback. If you would like to make use of this service then please complete our online consent form (Student Support Consent Form 2022-2023 (office.com)) to ensure we are GDPR compliant and once received, an adviser will be in touch with you to arrange an appointment.  

The Students' Union Office will be closed on strike days, however, we will still be working and you can still contact us via email at studentsunion@bbk.ac.uk.

The strikes come after UCU members overwhelmingly voted 'yes' to industrial action over attacks on pay and working conditions as well as pension cuts. 

In the pay and working conditions dispute, last week university bosses offered staff a 5% pay award. UCU said the offer is 'not enough' and expects members to reject it in big numbers in a consultation which was launched yesterday.

In the pension dispute, UCU is demanding employers revoke the cuts and restore benefits. The package of cuts made last year will see the average member lose 35% of their guaranteed future retirement income. For those at the beginning of their career the losses are in the hundreds of thousands of pounds.

During the strike days, classes taught by striking lecturers will be cancelled.  
In addition, staff will not be providing digital materials for classes that have been cancelled. 

UCU members are also taking action short of strike, which means working strictly to their contracted hours and refusing any additional duties, which may affect things like the speed at which assessments are marked and result in slower response times to emails from students.  

Non-academic staff might also be striking which could mean longer waiting times for some services.

Tier 4 students should continue to attend any non-cancelled classes (even if they are concerned about crossing a picket line), particularly if they are in danger of crossing Home Office’s absences threshold. 

However, if their class is cancelled that shouldn't contribute to their 10 consecutive expected contact points, so they don't need to worry about cancelled classes affecting visas. 

The Office for Students (OfS) states that all students have a contractual relationship with their university, which means they are protected by consumer protection law. OfS is clear that the university must continue to offer the service they have promised to students, even during periods of industrial action.

The steps the university and each school will take to reduce the impact of the strike action will be depend on the type of disruption. However the OfS says you can expect the university to:

• be proactive in resolving issues related to missed teaching. If teaching time is lost, it may be appropriate for catch-up teaching to be offered at a later time, missed course content to be delivered in a different way, or for partial refunds to be offered to affected students.
• take steps to ensure that you are not disadvantaged in assessment by any disruption. It might be appropriate for coursework deadlines to be extended or moved, or for certain topics to not be examined if they have not been delivered in time.
• explain clearly to you any changes made to how your course is delivered and how they will affect you. They should keep you informed of the impact of ongoing disruption and give you reasonable notice of any new arrangements.
• consider the needs of all students in responding to industrial action, particularly those who may be more affected than others, or may have difficulties accessing replacement learning.

You can read the full article on the OFS website, here.

Here are some alternative places that you can study if you don't feel comfortable crossing the UCU picket lines: 

• Wellcome Library inside the Wellcome Collection museum. 

• British Library. 

• Anthropology Library & Research Centre inside the British Museum. 

• Holborn Public Library. 

• Your local library - you can find your closest library by entering your postcode here: https://www.gov.uk/local-library-services 

It is completely up to you if you wish to support the strikes or not, however, if you do, here are a few things you can do:

• Join the picket line
• Tell/email striking staff to let them know your support them
• Share support/raise awareness on social media
• Follow @BbkUprising on Twitter, a channel run by students to support staff.