Following proposals to significantly increase employee contributions to the Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS), the University and College Union (UCU) has called a series of strikes at 68 universities.

Strike action is also being taken in a second dispute on the universities' failure to make improvements on pay, equality, casualisation and workloads.

Several BMA members either employed by or undertaking work for these universities have asked how they should respond to the strike action.

Advice for BMA members

If you support a picket line

Supporting a picket would amount to participating and furthering the objective of the picket which includes encouraging others to strike. This would be unlawful for a non-UCU member (that is, someone not involved in the trade dispute) because it would be inducing others to breach their contracts, which is a statutory tort. Where the member is not a party to the dispute they would not be protected under statute and would, therefore, run the risk of being held by the employer to be breaching their employment contract. The BMA does not recommend or suggest that its members take part in this industrial action.

If you must cross a picket line

BMA members who are not also members of UCU will not be legally protected if they participate in the industrial action. Therefore, they should attend work as normal and as required under their employment contract, unless they have agreed something different with their employer in advance.

If it is physically not possible to get into the place of work because of a picket line, then members need to report their absence using their employer’s normal absence reporting procedure.

If you are responsible for teaching medical students in your hospital on the day of the action, are not paid by the university, and the work is not in your job plan.

You are responsible through your main NHS employer to undertake the teaching and, even if it is not formally included in your job plan, if it is something that you have done consistently, it is likely to form an implied part of your employment contract.

How to show support for colleagues in the UCU

If you are not a member of the UCU, you will not be legally protected if you get involved in the industrial action. You can show moral support any way you like provided it does not amount to taking industrial action yourself or participating to encourage others to take industrial action (see above).

You can show support by not obstructing or discouraging colleagues from pursuing their legitimate right to take industrial action. You may also take part in any demonstrations on the issue as long as this is in your own time and the demonstration is not designed to discourage people from working. Any support you provide must not compromise your own position as a professional and employee who is not directly part of the dispute.

Statement from MASC

We would like to express our solidarity with our colleagues in the UCU and the decision they have taken to protest the proposed changes to academics’ pensions.

The USS has proposed changes based on the worst-case scenario. We share UCU’s anger and concern at this significant increase in the costs to members of the scheme. We believe that this will be damaging for current medical academics and for the future of academic medicine as it creates a deterrent to taking up academic activity as a long-term career.

MASC shares many of the concerns that UCU has about the proposals from the Universities Superannuation Scheme and the process that it has followed in reaching its decisions. However, we could not ask the BMA to support the UCU’s action because 1) the wider disputes around pay and contracts were not ones to which clinical academics were party and 2) the UCU’s proposal to reduce the pay cap for the main USS pension scheme was against the interests of our members.

We will, of course, support any BMA member who is also a member of the UCU or is otherwise affected by the industrial action. However, it would not be lawful for BMA members who are not members of the UCU to participate in the industrial action. If you need advice you can contact us.