Aditya Chakrabortty’s article shed welcome light on some of the horrendous industrial relations practices in the higher education sector (The miserly tale of how a university took its staff’s wages – and the public paid the price, 22 December). Particularly welcome was his exposure of the punitive deductions from salary for taking part in lawful industrial action at institutions such as Queen Mary University of London. In some cases, lecturers have received no pay at all in their monthly pay packets for failing to mark only a handful of exam scripts over a few hours, pursuing a collectively agreed grievance.
No one disputes that striking employees lose the right to pay for every day they strike. Deducting pay in full for taking action short of strike for a few hours is different. Not only is it morally indefensible, there is also a strong case that it is unlawful as a matter of human rights law to deduct pay like that. While cases in the 1980s appear to establish that employers have such a right as a matter of common law/contract, the advent of the Human Rights Act, and its protection for union rights in article 11, has changed the legal landscape quite considerably.
The loss in pay to every lecturer outweighs by some way any measurable loss to their university from that small partial performance. In human rights terms, a university employer that makes full deductions for partial performance has interfered disproportionately with its employees’ right to take industrial action. Even the threat to deduct can constitute a “chill” on the exercise of that right.
Human rights law is rightly very wary of sanctioning such a full-blown attack on a worker’s associative right and the collective strength of the union and its members to seek improvements in pay and conditions.
David Mead
Professor of UK human rights law, University of East Anglia
• Aditya Chakrabortty’s article quotes only part of the statement provided by Queen Mary University of London, in which we made three directly relevant points.
First, as a university, we have a moral and regulatory obligation to deliver our students’ education and experience. That is why, from the outset of industrial action, we have been clear that our top priority is to protect our students’ education and experience above all other activities carried out at the university. We do not withhold pay from staff so long as they deliver all their educational activities.
Second, industrial disputes are resolved by negotiation. It was therefore disappointing to see industrial action at Queen Mary over the summer focused expressly on disrupting our students’ education despite a nationally agreed Acas agreement and two local agreements with the University and College Union, including a 21% local pay increase in London weighting.
Third, in the event, fewer than 1% of Queen Mary staff took part in industrial action over the summer. The resulting disruption affected fewer than 2% of our final-year graduating students, all of whom were studying English and drama.
We have been transparent on these and all other points from the outset of industrial action. All information – including a governance review conducted by Queen Mary’s council – is publicly available on the university’s website.
Of course, union members are entitled to take industrial action. Our students are equally entitled to their education and should not have their futures jeopardised by industrial action. While we will accept disruption as a result of industrial action to research or administration, we will not accept disruption to our students’ education.
Prof Colin Bailey
President and principal, Queen Mary University of London
• Do you have a photograph you’d like to share with Guardian readers? If so, please click here to upload it. A selection will be published in our Readers’ best photographs galleries and in the print edition on Saturdays.
