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Anti-casualisation update

University of Leeds UCU Posted on by

PGR open meeting Monday 9 April, 9–11am, 28 University Rd, LT G.23 This meeting is for all postgraduates (members and non-members) and is an important step in building the campaign for fair pay, terms and conditions for all postgraduates who teach or who work in paid research and related roles at the university. It will cover three main areas: Focus on postgrad elements of the Uni of Leeds UCU branch anticasualisation claim: what do postgrads want and need? Building on the energy of the recent strikes (and what the strikes tell us about casualisation!) Recruitment and the free postgrad membership (reminder: www.ucu.org.uk/free) There will be vegan cake too! Members are asked to let all postgrads know about this meeting and the free postgraduate membership offer. Please email with suggestions for agenda items/questions about the meeting (k.l.zezulka@leeds.ac.uk) and please share with PGRs in your school. Anticasualisation campaign and roadshow planning As part of the open meeting on 9 April, we will be discussing organising a UCU anticasualisation roadshow. We will be organising a local event to discuss, debate and explore issues related to casualisation and precarity in HE and FE. There is lots of information on the UCU Stamp Out webpages … continue reading

Open Letter on USS pensions to University of Leeds VC

University of Leeds UCU Posted on by

This petition is the result of a unanimous decision taken at a Leeds UCU General Meeting on 15th March 2018. Everyone is welcome to sign, whether a member of UCU or not, e.g. staff, students, alumni, prospective students, parents and other members of civil society. We the undersigned ask the Vice Chancellor, Alan Langlands, to commit to the following: To argue for the need for a fair and just defined benefit pension scheme for all University of Leeds staff currently in the USS scheme. 1 To write to UUK stating that Leeds now supports the retention of a defined benefit USS scheme, is willing to pay higher employer contributions and supports a rethink of the recent USS valuation. 1 To write to UUK and USS to demand a fully independent review of the valuation methodology applied to assessments of the USS scheme (as supported for example by Vice Chancellors of Sheffield and Kent) and to call on the Pensions Regulator to reassess its restrictions on “acceptable methodology” in light of this. 1 To work with Leeds UCU in order to pressure UUK and USS to retain our defined benefits pension scheme noting that the VC is on the UUK Board … continue reading

March USS News: ACAS talks, International Women’s Day, double docking pay, and more

University of Leeds UCU Posted on by

The USS enewsletter is brought to you by the Leeds UCU Communications team. If you have any concerns about USS issues raised in it, please contact vice-chancellor@leeds.ac.uk ACAS talks continuing The strike action has been extremely effective in bringing Universities UK (UUK, the employers’ body) to the negotiating table. Originally they said they wouldn’t discuss the decision in January to impose drastic cuts to USS pensions (the average lecturer in retirement would lose £10,000 a year).  But now, after huge support for the strikes across the country by staff and students, they are talking, and UCU has put forward a compromise proposal.  We all want to get back to work, but the strikes will not be called off until a good solution is reached.  UCU members please stay solid with the strike, pickets every day from 7:30 am.  Non-UCU members can help by donating to our Fighting Fund and writing to the VC. International Women’s Day 8th March The rally on 8th March on Parkinson steps will have a special focus for International Women’s Day, including feminist poetry.  Come along at 11:00, followed by a protest supporting the women hunger strikers at Yarls Wood Immigration Centre. And read the excellent article … continue reading

International Women’s Day: UCU women on strike!

University of Leeds UCU Posted on by

In memory of the mass strike of 1908 by women garment workers in Manhattan, on the 8th of March women across the world celebrate International Women’s Day. As our research fellow and UCU activist wrote recently, such anniversary reminds us how women have always worked, struggled and gone on strike. This year Women’s day coincides with one of the days of our strike to protect our pensions. As highlighted in the motion voted unanimously at our last General Meeting the massive pension cuts that UUK wants to impose on us will have an overwhelmingly negative impact on women because of a very simple fact: our pension is deferred salary, and women tend to be paid less than men and even more so in HE than in other sectors of the UK economy. Women are indeed the majority among those performing the lower paid jobs in our campuses, often hired into support and teaching-related jobs rather than in tenured full academic positions. They are also the majority among the increasing HE workforce on precarious contracts (fixed-term, hourly paid, fractionalised)-which represent 54% of all academic staff and 49% of all academic teaching staff according to a recent report by UCU national.  Women … continue reading

Professorial open letter

University of Leeds UCU Posted on by

Open Letter to the University of Leeds Management Sent on 21 February to the Vice-Chancellor, Deputy Vic-Chancellor, Head of Human Resources and Head of Finance.  The response from the Vice-Chancellor is copied below. The undersigned, all professorial staff at the University of Leeds, call upon the University management and UUK to re-open negotiations to resolve the current pensions dispute. As academics at this university, we are committed to the highest quality teaching and research possible, but we will not accept the erosion of our pensions, set to diminish by an average of £10,000 per annum. Further, we do not accept that our current defined benefit scheme be replaced by a defined contribution scheme in which pensioners bear all the risk and potentially may end up with even greater losses than currently projected by USS. We support the strike action called by the UCU. We support the strike action as senior members of the University not only for our own future pensions but to make sure that our educational profession is an attractive one for the range of committed staff that make it up now and, in the future, from early career academics, academic support staff, through to part-time staff and … continue reading