Today’s talk by Pura Aziza, who is a member of UCU’s LGBT members standing committee, is at 1pm, 11-14 Blenheim Terrace, room G15. (The entrance is at number 11.) The talk is part of UCU’s LGBT History Month activities. continue reading
On Monday 20 February many UCU members will join colleagues in our university and others, and in all sorts of workplaces across the country, in taking a day off work to show how important EU nationals and migrants from around the world are the this country. As university staff we know our work is international. So does the University of Leeds, which has agreed to be as supportive as it can be to requests to take annual leave to support the action this Monday. For more about the campaign, see 1daywithoutus.org UCU, Unite and Unison are all supporting the day of action, and we are helping to arrange activities on the day. In Leeds city centre there will stalls on Briggate from 12.30 to 5pm, including a big group photo at 1pm. Organisers are predicting a large turnout. Then at 5pm there will be a march to celebrate migration, anti-racism and freedom of movement. At the university, there will be stalls in the Parkinson building from 11am to 12.30pm. If you can’t make it down, you can show your support by taking your photo with one of this sign or the one below and posting it on social media. Spread the word! continue reading
Multiple choice question, check all that apply. Q1. What are the grounds for dismissal at the University of Leeds? ☑ Incapable ☑ Misconduct ☑ Ill-health ☑ Redundancy ? Some [read ‘any’] other substantial reason The university wants to add a new reason for dismissal ‘some other substantial reason’ to our Statutes, which would make it easier to dismiss people for any reason. For example, a conflict of interest or personality clash, third party pressure, raising insufficient funding, not publishing enough, not having a PhD, or criticising management. UCU opposes this and we want your views on what to do next. Members please come to the General Meeting, Tuesday 6 December, 1pm-2pm, Roger Stevens lecture theatre 14. Non-members please join! ucu.org.uk/join continue reading
At our all members general meeting on 29 September we agreed to send a motion to the UCU national executive committee (NEC) on migration. The union’s NEC met on 25 of October. Brexit, anti-immigrant scapegoating and the normalisation of racism were a major topic of discussion. The NEC condemned the popularisation of racism by the Tory government and their supporters. Some delegates argued too many in the trade union and labour movement are pandering to these ideas by accepting immigration to be a ‘problem’ and ‘controlling numbers’ being the answer. NEC overwhelmingly passed the motion to make the defence of free movement of labour central to our defence of EU migrants and migrant workers more generally. It was suggested that branches should use this motion to link up with the Campaign for the Free Movement of Labour post Brexit and to mobilise for the one-day strike called by the ‘A day without us’ campaign. Motions supporting the Stand Up to Racism trade union conference on 4 February and demonstration on 18 March were also passed. Both are also supported by the TUC. Full text of the motion from our local association reads: (Several branches submitted similar motions on this issue; … continue reading
The University of Leeds is the Times and Sunday Times University of the Year 2017. We’re proud of that, and we’re proud of the excellent work we do here. The three staff unions – UCU, Unison and Unite – wrote jointly to the Vice-Chancellor to ask for a thank you for all our hard work. We suggested a flat payment of £500 before Christmas would be a welcome way to thank staff for our collective achievement. The Vice-Chancellor subsequently emailed staff about giving an extra day’s annual leave as a thank you. If the university management had discussed this idea with us first we could have warned them that many people would be disappointed or even angered by the suggestion (as proved the case) because they already feel they have to not take all of their annual leave each year because of their workloads, or if they do take an extra day the work will still be there for them on their return. We have discussed the concerns members raised with us with the Vice-Chancellor. The three unions have agreed to ask all union members to sign a petition requesting a £500 bonus. Please sign! You can sign on paper … continue reading