Understanding your consumer rights during the UCU Industrial action
You may be entitled to ask for a part refund of your fees.
Despite some attempts to portray students as credulous consumers who come to university to ‘buy’ a qualification, we know that our students are thoughtful and committed people who understand the meaning of education. You crave learning and the recognition of your achievements. When we talk with students, you understand your education as part of broader society; a society they want to contribute to, using what they learn at university.
To portray students as consumers who simply want to buy a degree is a crass manipulation intended only to justify the instrumental and managerialist approaches of senior management.
It is not students who do not understand the true value of a university degree: it is Vice Chancellors and their senior management.
Students do, however, have the right to receive value for money for the huge tuition fees you pay. This does not make you instrumental, consumerist or ignorant of the broader value of education. This simply makes you real people, like all of us, who expect to receive the service you have paid for.
As students you know that you are not paying fees simply for:
- a degree certificate
- a ceremonial gown
- some letters after their name.
As students you know that you are – or should be – paying fees for:
- informed tuition
- sharing of subject expertise
- formative learning experiences
- robust assessment of your work
- accreditation based on valid and reliable evaluation of your achievements.
Why are you paying full fees?
Lancaster University is not paying its staff their full wages during the Marking & Assessment Boycott (MAB), and saves on salary when we are on strike. But the university is still charging students full fees for the services provided by those staff.
How can this be right?
Here is the detail of the dispute. UCU members engaged in a MAB, lawfully convened under our ‘action short of strike’. The university has made a 50% deduction in our salaries as a response. Maybe that is fair you think? If we are not doing 50% of our work?
Except, the university’s own workload model shows that marking – by their own metrics – makes up far less than 50% of our formal workload. The University’s own FAQs regarding the MAB clearly acknowledges that they have decreed some of our work to be voluntary as a result of MAB action:
the University reserves the right not to pay you for any other work you voluntarily choose to do while participating in ASOS.
Voluntary? Hang on – isn’t voluntary meant to mean we do this by choice? We have not declared ourselves working voluntarily. We have continued to perform all our tasks (other than marking and assessment) – and more – during MAB. So how can they justify the 50% denial in our salaries?
More importantly, how can the university justify the following contradictory positions:
- Their own workload model puts time spent at assessment as well below 50% of the average academic workload
- Yet they deduct 50% of our pay
- They tell us our work is deemed voluntary
- They are unable to run assessment and quality assurance procedures according to their own standard regulations.
- They continue to charge you full fees.
Students – we know many of you support this strike and our campaign for a better higher education. But some of you do not support our position. We understand that. But in either case, you have not received what you paid for.
It is like paying for a cake and only receiving half of one!
Asking the university to repay fees in lieu of lost services is your right, and does not necessarily mean you do not support the industrial action that has led to this situation.
Where has the money gone? That is your money. You deserve to have a refund.
Advice from the Office of Students:
All students have a contractual relationship with their university/college, which means they are protected by consumer protection law. This means that universities and colleges must continue to offer the service they have promised to students, even during periods of industrial action.
What does the Office for Students say about the law and past decisions?
Under consumer protection law, contract terms which give unreasonable power to change what is offered are likely to be considered unfair. Your university or college should not try to rely on these contract clauses to limit their liability for missed teaching. The OIA has sometimes decided that this is unreasonable, where universities or colleges have sought to do this in the past.
The above quotes were taken from: Office for Students advice on industrial action (external link)
Here is the link to the Office of Students if you wish to take action as a consumer who has not received what you paid for: Office for Students advice if unhappy about the impact of industrial action
Lancaster UCU 