Author Archives:

Local Hardship Fund

Posted on by

At our General Meeting on 3 December we unanimously passed a motion revising the rules for our local Hardship Fund to allow us to provide greater support to members facing financial difficulties due to pay deductions for striking. The local Hardship Fund will work alongside and in addition to the UK-wide Fighting Fund. Members should apply to the Fighting Fund for support initially, except where claiming for days of strike action not covered by the Fighting Fund (day 1 for those earning less than £30,000 gross annually, days 1 and 2 for those earning more than £30,000 gross annually). The local Hardship Fund will the supplement the UK-wide Fighting Fund, or provide support where the UK-wide Fighting Fund cannot. The new rules mean that the Hardship Fund: Will comply with the appended guidance from UCU to ensure continued solvency of the branch, and that the branch is able to continue to meet all its usual commitments for and on behalf of members;Will be managed by local branch officers a panel of at least three elected branch officers, including the Treasurer;Will prioritise members in precarious, low paid work, as per national and local priorities;Will also prioritise members who can demonstrate that … continue reading

International staff survey

Posted on by

UCU University of Leeds international staff surveyPlease promote this link to international colleagues at University of Leeds, whether or not they have joined UCU yet. We’re delighted to announce the launch of our International Staff Survey. By international staff we refer to both EU and non EU academic, academic related and postgraduates who do paid teaching for the university. We would like to encourage all international staff to please fill out the anonymous survey and get in contact with us if you would like to take part in our international staff activism here at Leeds (contact Laura Loyola Hernandez). This survey has come out of our Equality working group lead by Dima Chami, if you are interested in joining please contact her. We would like to point out that the intersection of gender, race, ethnicity, (dis)ability and being part of the LGTBQ+ community exacerbates the experiences of being international at the University of Leeds, so please include any comments at the end of the survey if relevant. You can complete the survey here: https://yoursay.ucu.org.uk/s3/leeds  It will take approximately 10 minutes to answer. Most of the questions are tick box and a free text question where you can comment on any … continue reading