9 June 2023
A joint statement from LSHTM’s Executive Team and LSHTM University and College Union (UCU) Branch Committee on the current national dispute over pay and conditions.
The management, students and UCU branch at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) deeply regret that the national pay and conditions dispute has reached a point whereby a marking and assessment boycott has been called. This boycott is likely to be detrimental to students at LSHTM and will also impact management and staff into the future.
LSHTM has recently established values associated with embracing difference and working together which underpin everything we do. Students have already been affected by pandemic restrictions, changes in international travel and visas, and are now facing the likelihood that the completion of their MSc and doctoral degrees may be delayed. The boycott means that international students may not be able to apply for post-study graduate visas on completion of their course and this has affected our admissions for future years. We are deeply sympathetic to the strength of feeling and the difficulties experienced in our student body.
For both management and staff this is a stressful and anxious time. This dispute on pay and working conditions needs negotiation, and resolution. Our preference at this stage is for the national level negotiations to be resumed without delay. Within LSHTM, management and staff are working on local working conditions in good faith. We call on UCEA and UCU to resume national level negotiations in equal good faith and reach an agreed settlement.
All parties at LSHTM – management, the student body and staff – urgently need a resolution to this dispute to ensure our teaching, research and funding are secured going forward.
Professor Liam Smeeth, LSHTM Director, on behalf of the Executive Team
LSHTM UCU Branch Committee