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UCU levy, and job losses

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Text of email from branch president Ben Plumpton to members on 26 June 2020 Dear members, UCU levy You will have seen the email today from Jo Grady, our General Secretary, about UCU taking a levy from members of £15 (in two instalments) for the Fighting Fund, so that the union can continue to support members taking industrial action. Obviously it’s important that the union can help members in this way: many members in our branch have been supported by the Fighting Fund over the recent strikes, and the union has prioritised low-paid and casualised staff in disbursing strike pay.  However, your branch committee is concerned about the lack of consultation on this, and that it wasn’t possible, according to the UCU rule book, to make this a progressive levy dependent on salary. We know many hourly paid, part time and low paid members will find this levy difficult to afford. (Note: members on the full free membership are excluded from the levy).  Some members have already offered to contribute to cover the levy for low paid members of this branch (thank you!), and we would be glad to hear from any other members who feel able to do the same. … continue reading

General meeting change of date: Thursday 9th July

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Text from email from branch honorary secretary Tim Goodall to all branch members Thursday 25 June 2020 Our next General Meeting is on Thurs 9th July 12pm – 1pm and will be held online.  Please note the change of date from that given at the start of the year. We’ll send details of how to join the meeting in a later email.   Agenda items and motions should be submitted by 12 midday, Tuesday 30 June, by email to ucu@leeds.ac.uk  If you need any help or advice to submit a motion, please email ucu@leeds.ac.uk  I’ve included a few guidance notes below: The meetings are for all members of this branch. They are the primary means for collective decision making. If you think the local UCU branch should take a particular position on an issue or should carry out a particular action you can submit a motion* to the meeting by the deadline**, your motion will be circulated to all members with the agenda, then all members who attend the meeting can vote on whether they agree. Please do come to as many general meetings as you can attend – the more people participate in our collective decision making the more effective the … continue reading

Lecture capture policy: update

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Email to members from branch vice president Chloe Wallace, 9 June 2020 Dear members I hope that you and yours are well – it is for many of us a particularly challenging time of a particularly challenging year, and I hope that you are getting through it. I am writing to update you on the situation in relation to the University’s proposed new Audio-Visual (lecture capture) policy. Thank you to all those who took the time to give us feedback on the proposals: if you have not already seen it, the summary of feedback is here: Thank you also to those who attended our General Meeting on the topic. You can find the text of the motion passed at that meeting here:  In response to our concerns, the university has made some changes to the draft policy. There is a welcome change on wording around performance management, and some movement on the issue of ownership. However, many areas of concern remain unchanged.  You may have seen in a general staff email that the revised policy is now out for consultation amongst the wider staff – the link is here. We’d encourage all members to contribute to that staff wide consultation. … continue reading

Defending casualised staff in HE

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Text of email from branch president Ben Plumpton sent 3 June 2020 Dear members, At our branch General Meeting on 28th April we passed an important motion about supporting casualised staff (copied in full below) which included calling on you to support the CoronaContracts campaign. Please sign the national open letter at https://tinyurl.com/coronacontract – thank you.  Locally, your branch officers and committee are pressing our management on many of these issues, particularly the renewal of contracts and the impact on migrant workers, and our caseworkers are supporting individual members too. The CoronaContracts campaign have written an open letter to the union’s General Secretary and newly elected National Executive Committee, asking them to hold a mass online meeting of UCU members, both casual and permanent, to discuss urgent action around casualisation. The letter is headed “If you don’t do it, we will” and you can view and sign it at https://forms.gle/5FfShwDFB4HfC6vk9  CoronaContracts are holding a mass meeting tomorrow (Thursday 4th June) on Zoom, at 6:30 pm, and I’d encourage you to join it if you possibly can.  The Zoom link is https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81863074335?pwd=RWNsaWNiY1FOQ0s5WjlmSXZ0M1pLQT09  It is crucial at this time, when many universities are wanting to make savings on staff costs, that we as union members stand together in solidarity, … continue reading

Branch votes to reject latest ‘four fights’ offer

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An emergency meeting of the branch was help today to establish the branch’s position on the employers’ offer on casualisation, equal pay, workloads and pay (the ‘four fights’ dispute) and on the latest developments in the USS pensions dispute. The meeting is to let our delegates know how to vote on our behalf at a meeting of branch delegates on Tuesday (26 May), ahead of the UCU higher education committee meeting on 27 May. (For more details see Your feedback on next-steps in the ‘Four Fights’ and USS disputes) No formal vote was taken on the USS pensions dispute, so our delegate will try to vote with the contributions made in mind. On the ‘four fights’ dispute, members passed the following motion: Motion 1 This branch rejects the latest ‘offer’ in the 4 fights dispute. We don’t believe that sufficient progress has been made on any of the key issues in the dispute in the light of the developing crisis in the sector. Accepting an ‘offer’ that does not give sufficient guarantees to women members on the gender pay gap, BAME members on the race pay gap and to our casualised staff and includes no movement on pay would be … continue reading