Industrial action: guidance for staff

No, the university will be open as usual.  

There will likely be a polite picketing presence at some campus entrances on the strike days. While pickets may ask you not to cross a picket line, they cannot stop you from entering the campuses or require you to engage in discussion with them.
Those who wish to cross a picket line are allowed to do so.  Pickets should consist of a maximum of six people on any picket line. Picketing at Imperial has always been conducted respectfully without intimidation of staff, students or visitors, and we're confident this will continue.  

You may wish to inform your visitors that there may be a picket and that, while picketers may ask them not to cross the picket line, they will not stop them from entering campuses or force them to engage in discussion.
You may choose to conduct the meeting or interview online via Teams or Zoom. For meetings or interviews arranged for strike days, if you are concerned that key members of the meeting may not be present, the meeting should, if feasible, be rearranged, or alternate staff members should be identified to cover for potentially absent employees.

You are not obliged to inform us in advance of your intention to take industrial action.    

If you choose not to provide this notification in advance of a strike day, you should do so as soon as reasonably possible on your return by emailing industrialaction@imperial.ac.uk, copying in your Head of Department and Director of Operations or equivalent. 

• Your name, CID number and department 
• All dates you intend to take/have taken strike action
• If you do not work full-time, include your work pattern 
• Whether you wish to make up your pension contributions.

If you wish to make up your pension contributions, the university will also pay the corresponding employer contribution. If you do not state this, it will not be done and cannot be changed after you have been paid. 

The university will withhold a full day's pay for each day that you take strike action, calculated at the rate of 1/365.   

For part-time staff it will be based on your contracted hours on the day of action and only this amount is withheld. For part-time staff please ensure your strike notification email confirms your work pattern. 

When an employee notifies the University in a timely manner upon their return to work, deductions for strike action will be actioned as below: 

When a notification of strike action is received after the payroll deadline for the relevant month, the deduction will be actioned in the next month's salary.  

Industrial action automatically suspends a member of staff's employment contract, affecting the build-up of their pension benefits. Lower pensionable pay means a lower level of pension builds up. If you wish to maintain contributions on days you are not paid, and not build up a lower pension, you should notify us as outlined above.

Death in service and ill health retirement benefits are still covered during the strike days detailed above for members of SAUL and USS.

Skilled Worker/Tier 2 and Temporary Worker/Tier 5 GAE sponsored workers should be aware that we will record time off work due to strike action as part of legally organised industrial action in Teamseer and, in some instances, may need to report this to UKVI. 

Although strike days are classified as a permitted exception under UKVI unpaid leave rules, the university would be required to notify UKVI if you were to have 10 consecutive working days of unauthorised absence. This should not impact either your current status or your ability to extend your permission to stay in the UK. 

We fully respect the legal right of staff to participate in industrial action. At the same time, we remind all colleagues that the University’s Code of Conduct applies to the use of Imperial IT resources, including email content and out-of-office messages. This is in accordance with the provisions of the Conditions of Use of IT resources (see Conditions of use of IT resources | Administration and support services | Imperial College London), with specific reference to paragraph 11.3 which states that:

“use of College IT resources, and their use to access non-College IT resources, must be for the purpose of College research, teaching, coursework, associated administration or other authorised use."