UCU is supporting a national demonstration of unity in London on Saturday in response to concerns of increasing racism and xenophobia and the rise of the far right. The demonstration is called by Stand Up To Racism, Unite Against Fascism and Love Music Hate Racism and supported by the TUC.
Locally there are coaches going from Leeds, Bradford, Huddersfield, Sheffield and York. Members will be able to claim the coach fare back from UCU regional office (heyorkshire@ucu.org.uk) For details, including all the local coaches, see https://www.facebook.com/events/1887445111550804/
A reminder that the deadline for motions to the next ordinary general meeting is 12pm Tuesday 20 November. The meeting is 1pm Monday 10 December on Roger Stevens lecture theatre 11. Room information In some circumstances the chair of the general meeting may accept emergency motions submitted after the deadline of 20 November. See leedsucu.org.uk/about-us/local-rules
At the UCU stall at the National Stress Awareness Day event, 7 November in Parkinson Court, we asked people what they thought were the causes of stress for them. Many staff said job security was the main cause of stress, and many staff and students said money was the main cause of stress. The overwhelming majority of staff and students said workload is the main cause of stress.
Most people who participated said workload causes them stress
UCU is campaigning to reduce workloads, but we’re facing opposition from senior management, some of whom are very dismissive, claiming they don’t think there is a widespread problem.
We’re setting up a new network of UCU workload reps to investigate and provide more evidence to show university senior management that they need to reduce workloads for the sake of staff health and safety and so we can all have a rewarding life outside of work.
Our University was one of the institutions that wanted us to lose Defined Benefits altogether.
UCU National Disputes Committee adopts a ‘No Detriment’ position
USS letter proposes using an updated March 2018 valuation to supersede the March 2017 valuation
Our University’s position on last year’s UUK proposal to end to Defined Benefits
Members at Leeds may have seen the recent release of the University of Leeds’s recent responses to UUK surveys of its members over the USS pensions scheme. What these documents tell us is that our University is among the most hawkish in willing an end to your Defined Benefit pension and that, in something of a volte-face given that early verdict, they have conceded that the UUK should adopt the JEP recommendations. We link to these documents at the bottom of this page.
Michael Otsuka, who has been instrumental in commenting on and explaining the various vagaries of the pensions dispute, has described our recorded university’s position as “foaming at the mouth alarmist in their claims of DB” and pointed out that our employer was one of the minority that advocated a shift to 100% defined contributions – the base cause of last year’s strike. Professor Otsuka highlights the insensitivity of our University’s response.
UCU National Disputes Committee adopts a ‘No Detriment’ position
A National Disputes Committeeof the UCU was established at the HE sector conferences of May and June 2018. The NDC is tasked with providing direction to the Superannuation Working Group and to Union leadership. In light of the JEP recommendations, the NDC made the following announcement last week:
UCU members should suffer no detriment in any proposed resolution of the USS dispute. Lost earning should be repaid, any interim contribution increases should be shouldered by the employer, and USS benefits should remain the same.
UCU should call upon UUK and individual Vice Chancellors to apologise to their staff for their role in triggering the dispute [see above for the Leeds position!]
UUK and individual Vice Chancellors should also apologise to students for their actions and offer appropriate compensation for lost teaching.
USS letter proposes using an updated March 2018 valuation to supersede the March 2017 valuation
In a letter dated 23 October the USS has proposed to employers that, in order to accommodate some of the JEP proposals, they might in effect replace the March 2017 valuation with a March 2018 valuation. This, they argue would nonetheless still necessitate the controversial requirement of triggers for more contributions from employers between valuations, and this despite the already increased ‘deficit recovery contributions’ from employers that were put in place partially to avoid automatic triggers of further employer contributions. This is something that the JEP had already suggest should be addressed in the longer term rather than be kept within the envelope of discussion. This letter suggests that USS is still minded to resist all of the JEP recommendations. This last week, @USSbriefs has been surveying various employer responses to the UUK consultation over the JEP recommendations, and collectively these, alongside any UCU position could participate in bringing USS closer to accepting all JEP recommendations.
