The national UCU Fighting Fund does not always provide cover for every day of a dispute. A local Hardship Fund has been established to provide financial support to members for any additional days not covered by the national fund.

Members should claim from the national fund up to the capped limits in the first instance, and then from the local fund to cover any additional days. 

How to claim

If you wish to claim please read these guidance notes then complete the HWUCU Hardship Fund application form and send it to the local branch office at ucu@hw.ac.uk together with copies of any relevant payslips as evidence of loss of earnings. We regret that claims cannot be paid without the appropriate evidence. We are unable to return copies submitted by post by post as we need to retain them for audit and HMRC purposes.

You must submit a claim within a year of the of the date of loss of pay. When you submit a claim your membership status will be checked. No claim can be met for members who are in arrears, so before you claim please check that your subscription is up-to-date and that you are paying the correct level of subscription for your salary.

If you cannot locate your membership number, please either log in or register at https://www.ucu.org.uk/myucu or email membership@ucu.org.uk.

Applications made to the Hardship Fund will be assessed in confidence by a Panel of three committee members including the Branch President, or their nominee, and the Branch Treasurer. The Panel’s decision will be final.

We will try to give priority of payment to members most in need e.g. lower paid or casual staff, and members on insecure contracts etc. If you are in particular need of financial assistance resulting from the docked pay, for example if you are hourly paid and lost a significant proportion of your weekly earnings, you will be given priority. Please provide details in the special circumstances section on the claim form. We may ask you for additional evidence in these circumstances and in no case can payments be made in excess of your actual loss.

Claimants will be notified if their claim has been successful. We will endeavour to make payment of funds within 3 weeks of an application being received. Payments will be made by bank transfer.

You will not need to repay payments if the employer subsequently decides to refund the deducted pay but we would ask that you consider making a donation to the Hardship Fund to help support members in future industrial action.

Note: To simplify processing of payments we would ask that you submit claims for strike pay on a separate form to the one you use to claim compensation for deductions for MAB as they are calculated at different rates. We will update this form in due course.