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All members: extraordinary general meeting 10 July

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All members of UCU University of Leeds Branch are invited to attend an Extraordinary General Meeting: Wednesday 10 July 12 noon – 1pmMichael Sadler seminar room LG.15 The meeting will discuss a number of issues that the branch needs to take a position on or plan for before next semester: USS pensions disputePay and Equality disputeHead of School appointmentsMisuse of lecture capture by the universityUniForum (another round of collecting benchmarking data on “the efficiency and effectiveness of administration and support services”)Discussion boards for in-course feedbackTimetablingCentralisation of admissions A full agenda will be circulated soon including motions submitted by members on these issues. The deadline for submitting motions (by email to ucu@leeds.ac.uk) is noon on Tuesday 2 July. If you want to submit a motion, perhaps with other colleagues, you can discuss it with any branch committee members beforehand if that would be helpful. All members are very welcome to the meeting. We hope to see lots of you there! (To new members: General Meetings are for all UCU members at the university. They are where we make decisions as a local union, so are fundamental to our democracy. They are hopefully also useful for finding out what’s going on across the university and … continue reading

Boycott of Trinity College, Cambridge

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UCU’s higher education committee (HEC) today voted to officially censure Trinity College, Cambridge and will call on staff worldwide to boycott the institution unless it reverses its decision to pull out of the Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS). At a meeting of the college’s Fellows this morning, a motion to reconsider the decision to withdraw from USS was lost by 43 votes to 76. The union will set up a special committee to consider what action the boycott would entail and it may include asking HE staff to: not attend, speak at or organise academic or other conferences at Trinity not apply for jobs at Trinity not give lectures at Trinity not accept positions as visiting professors or researchers at Trinity not write for any academic journal which is edited from Trinity not take up new contracts as external examiners. (Post from UCU national website) … continue reading

Calling on the UK government to act over Sudan massacre and human rights abuses

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At least 110 opposition supporters were murdered in Sudan earlier this month when a paramilitary group violently dispersed a peaceful sit-in outside defence headquarters in Khartoum. The massacre followed six months of developing protests that began over bread prices last December, leading to a general strike in May.  The demonstrators were initially protesting against the 30-year-rule of Omar al-Bashir.  They continued to protest after he was deposed by the military, demanding a swift transition to civilian rule. We encourage members to update their knowledge of what is occurring in Sudan: https://menasolidaritynetwork.com/2019/06/03/briefing-who-are-the-armed-men-who-threaten-sudans-peaceful-revolution/ and contact your MPs to promote the following three demands: We call on the UK government to: halt military and security cooperation with individuals and groups in Sudan responsible for human rights abuses.end to the transfer of arms or equipment to Sudan which can be used for repression.end the Khartoum process. We note the following statement from the Sudanese Professionals Association (3 June 2019): In the early hours of today, Rapid Support Forces backed by security forces and Police stormed the sit-in area in front of the headquarters of the Sudanese army in the capital Khartoum. Fire bullets were used excessively and injured several unarmed citizens; uncounted numbers of them are dead. The raiding … continue reading

USS pension, misrepresentation: very important update

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As a matter of urgency, please read [this revealing article] published in the Financial Times over the weekend.  When you get to the FT website, you can log into Leeds’ institutional subscription for access using your @leeds.ac.uk email address.  This article contains evidence (now in the public domain) that USS has misrepresented the position of the Pensions Regulator regarding calculations of risk and that it failed to address this misrepresentation when asked. This was at a crucial time while Universities UK the employers’ representative body) were consulting with member institutions over proposed assumptions for the 2018 USS valuation.  USS was already under investigation by two regulators after one of its trustees, Professor Jane Hutton (appointed by UCU), turned whistleblower: she accused the Trustee Chair and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Birmingham, David Eastwood, of withholding crucial information from her. See [here]. We now know that Eastwood was a recipient of the email sent from the Pensions Regulator to USS in January. It is notable that Josephine Cumbo shared an excerpt of this email on [Twitter] which says that the Pensions Regulator were planning to copy this communication to Universities UK. UCU are concerned that it would thus appear that our employers’ representative body appear to be implicated in a cover-up of this … continue reading

Notice of trade dispute over USS pensions

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A letter establishing a trade dispute over USS pensions has been sent today (7 June 2019) to every institution the scheme covers, including University of Leeds, as called for by UCU branches at the UCU Higher Education Sector Conference on Sunday 26 May (motion L5 (amended)). The letter gives universities until 19 June to inform UCU that they will not be imposing any pension benefit cuts or increasing our pension contributions. The UCU’s position of ‘no detriment’ is based on there being no genuine need for any detriment, as the joint expert panel set up by the employers and the union confirmed. We’d recommend all members read the full text of the letter below. (For more details about the dispute see our pensions page.) Dear Vice Chancellor You will be aware that early last year UCU members took part in 14 days of industrial action, which resulted in UUK withdrawing proposals to change USS from a hybrid defined benefit pension scheme into a defined contribution pension scheme. UCU members later voted to suspend the action and set up the Joint Expert Panel (JEP) in response to an offer from UUK.  The JEP reported in September 2018 and made a number … continue reading