The UCU nationally has strike fund to help those most in need of assistance (see the recent email from Jo Grady about this), and we do at local level too. At Cardiff, we’re better prepared than ever to support striking members with a healthy solidarity fund which we’re building all the time. During the last strike UCU took extra care to support precariously employed members such as those on low incomes, PhD students, and Postdocs and we aim to do so again. We realise that hourly paid workers may have difficulty evidencing loss of pay and will take that into account.

While we hope that as many union members as possible do take part in industrial action it is also worth noting that voting “yes” now does not oblige you to strike later. If you are on the fence about this ballots please consider voting “yes” now anyway. Signalling that a high percentage of union members is willing to strike strengthens our negotiators’ position and will hopefully help us to resolve the dispute without industrial action becoming necessary.

We are currently planning a benefit gig to fund-raise for our local strike fund to be held in early December 2019. We’ve got a number of bands already willing to play for us, and when we’ve got a date and venue we’ll share the info!