The UCU branch committee emailed the University of Leeds vice chancellor on Tuesday 29 September 2020 in response to the message from the university “Arrangements in the new academic year – a message from the Vice-Chancellor” (opens in new tab) received Friday 25 September 2020.

Dear Vice-Chancellor,

On behalf of Leeds UCU, I’d like to welcome your statement to staff.  We are absolutely in agreement with you that the most important priority is to protect the health and safety of the entire University community. And we are very glad that you are encouraging more use of online teaching during the COVID period. The university approach until now has been that schools must provide some face to face teaching, including those schools who had planned for fully online, and it’s good to see concerns about safety now overriding the hybrid model.  However, we would encourage you to go a step further, and insist that the only activities that should take place on campus are those which are impossible to do any other way (eg some practical sessions).  Tutorials, seminars and other small group teaching, supervisions, careers appointments and so on can be done very effectively online (and indeed have been done online since the campus lockdown in March).  This is in line with the recommendations from yesterday’s emergency report by the independent SAGE group, and we would urge the university to follow those recommendations (copied below) in full.

The campus trade unions have worked closely with university Health and Safety staff to make the campus environment as safe as possible, and our input to this has been welcomed.  UCU’s view now is that, with increased rates of COVID-19 nationally and locally, the university must limit as far as is possible the amount of activity on campus, in order to reduce the risk to everyone, including essential workers and the staff teaching and supporting those activities which can only be done on campus.

We are also glad to see your emphasis on student and staff mental health and wellbeing.  We can see from what’s already happened in Scotland, and now in nearby northern universities like Liverpool and Manchester, that outbreaks amongst students are highly likely, as was predicted by scientific modelling. Being ill or having to isolate in an unfamiliar place, and not being able to socialise, must be awful for students, especially new students who won’t have an established support network.  We are concerned that students should not be blamed for local outbreaks – this is a consequence of so many people travelling around the country and mixing, however stringent the safety precautions. We would of course encourage more university provision of student counselling and support.  But we also think that students should be allowed or even encouraged to return home at least until Christmas if they would feel happier doing so (see also recommendations 3 and 4 below).  And we are clear that staff would feel more supported by the university if no-one (including hourly paid graduate teaching assistants) felt obliged to work on campus if they don’t feel safe doing so for any reason.

I look forward to meeting you soon when we can discuss these issues further in person.

Cheers,

Ben

Ben Plumpton
Pronouns: She/Her/Hers
University of Leeds UCU President

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From Independent SAGE report 28 September 2020:

“Modelling shows that transmission occurs in residential halls and through in-person teaching. Thus, Independent SAGE recommends that universities immediately implement these five key recommendations:

1. Transfer all teaching and learning online by default.

2. Make essential in-person teaching and learning (e.g., components of laboratory or practicebased courses) contingent on the regular testing of students and staff, with a ‘dashboard’ approach as adopted by US Colleges, and with stringent adherence to face coverings, handwashing, physical distancing, and ventilation mitigations.

3. Offer students the choice whether to live on campus / in their university accommodation or at home elsewhere (e.g., with parents and caregivers) and review at the end of the calendar year (i.e., December), and avoid numerous journeys between home and university.

4. Ensure that students who choose to remain at university while learning online maintain the right to return home for the rest of the term at any point, with accommodation fees refunded, and with testing before doing so.

5. Ensure full and generous support to students both to self-isolate and to access online learning resources, including practical needs (e.g., food, laundry), learning (e.g., IT, connectivity), and social and emotional needs (e.g., buddy systems, regular wellbeing checks, online events).”

Message to members on behalf of the branch committee, Friday 25 September 2020

Following our email to the deputy vice chancellor on 18^th September, and the dismissive response that we initially received, we note that communication has now come from the vice-chancellor stating that thinking around face to face teaching at University of Leeds is ‘evolving’ and that:

“Where it is safe, practicable, and pedagogically advantageous or necessary, teaching should be delivered face-to-face, rather than online. However, in instances where those criteria cannot be met, we would recommend that you move your teaching online.” 

Our position is that all teaching should be online unless it is absolutely necessary to do it face to face, and we are pleased to see the university moving towards that position. The health and safety of staff and students ought to be at the heart of planning.

There are still some uncertainties about the statement: in particular, the statement that small classes are expected to remain face to face is vague and needs further clarification. And we are increasingly worried about the public health implications of large numbers of people on campus and in residence at the university.

We understand that a significant number of students are already, in induction week, self-isolating, and the signs from Scotland, where students are being told not to socialise this weekend, are not good.

It remains our position that the university must limit as far as is possible the amount of activity on campus, in order to reduce the risk to everyone, including essential workers and staff teaching and supporting activities which can only be done on campus. We call upon the university senior management to work with campus trades unions across all areas of university activity over the challenging weeks to come. 

Staff must not be required to work on campus unnecessarily, and, any UCU members with specific health and safety concerns about being required to work on campus should contact the branch for support – email ucu@leeds.ac.uk. We are particularly concerned about reports that casualised and hourly paid staff are being asked to take on a disproportionate amount of on campus work. 

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UCU’s position, both nationally and locally, is that all teaching in the coming term should be online (except for very limited cases where this is not feasible), and that all other university work that can be done online should continue online. Keeping the numbers on campus to an absolute minimum is the best way to avoid spreading the virus around the university community and beyond. Our General Meeting on 15th September overwhelmingly agreed on this, see link below to the wording of the motions passed on this issue.

We know many of you are worried and stressed about being required to return to campus, and we are hearing many concerns from departmental reps and individual members where school plans for wholly online teaching are being altered, at the behest of senior management, to include some face to face teaching and other events. Since some students will be unable to attend campus to attend these newly-proposed face to face activities, they are by definition non-essential.  Requiring staff to come onto campus is particularly worrying now, given increases in the COVID-19 infection rate both nationally and locally. And we are concerned that requirements to work on campus will fall disproportionally on casualised staff, who are often in a difficult position financially, and also that this may have equalities impacts (because of for example the higher infection rates and mortality rates in BAME communities, which means higher risks for those staff).

Your branch officers, together with the other campus trade unions, have been working hard over the summer trying to improve the university’s support to staff during lockdown and to address health and safety issues. The unions have been meeting with management two or three times a week and doing our best to negotiate and influence the university’s approach. Our input on Health and Safety, aiming to make things as safe as possible for anyone who needs to return to campus and for students (including building checks, room occupancy limits, social distancing, face covering arrangements etc) has been welcomed so far and improvements made as a result. However, we believe that the situation has now changed materially, and staff, students, our families and friends, and the wider local community need to be protected as fully as possible. Hence our position that everything that can be done online must now be done online, until at least Christmas.

At the start of the COVID outbreak, we in Leeds UCU were trying to persuade our management to lock down earlier, as were union branches elsewhere. Sadly that didn’t happen, which across the country probably contributed to the scale of the pandemic. We feel it’s desperately important, both locally and nationally, to avoid universities contributing to a surge in cases, and therefore it is crucial to stay online wherever possible.

We’ll keep you in touch more regularly in this fast changing situation. We may need an Emergency General Meeting to consider potentially raising a dispute on this issue – look out for further emails soon.

More information:

• UCU national position (see for example Jo Grady’s article in the Guardian yesterday, and UCU advice to branches on re-opening of campuses) 
• Branch letter last Friday to the Deputy Vice Chancellor for Student Education about unnecessary face to face activity
• Leeds UCU position – motions passed at General Meeting on 15th September

I know many of you are working incredibly hard at the moment, and often in very difficult situations. You are important, and together our contributions to the university are important – remember what we said in our strike placards and rallies:  we are the university! Please look after yourself as best you can, and if you have problems then do ask the union for help.  Please also continue to support each other across roles, contract types and diverse backgrounds – together we are strong!  We need to use that collective strength to protect everyone.

In solidarity,

Ben

Ben Plumpton
Pronouns: She/Her/Hers
University of Leeds UCU President