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Open letter to all USS pension scheme members

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If you are a member of the USS pension scheme, whether you are a UCU member or not, you need to know what’s going on with the renewed dispute over USS. Here we want to challenge some of the employers’ analysis, and outline what we as a branch would like to see the university do in order to ensure that the USS scheme is managed in a way acceptable to its members, preserving Defined Benefits. The Valuation Central to the dispute over USS is the valuation of the scheme’s assets and liabilities. On a rolling programme, USS establishes whether the scheme is in surplus or deficit and adjusts contributions to reflect that. However, there is no fixed valuation methodology and, within reason, the scheme’s trustees can adopt many different ways of assessing the scheme’s assets and liabilities and, therefore, contribution rates. When strike action was called off in 2018, a Joint Expert Panel (JEP), comprising representatives of UCU and the employers and with an independent chair, was established to look at how the scheme operated. In its first report, it made seven recommendations for modifying the assumptions of the 2017 valuation, and both the employers and the union accepted these … continue reading

Members please check your address!

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Leeds UCU members, please check that UCU has your correct postal address. This is a bit boring but very important. As you’ll have seen from recent UCU emails about pensions and about pay, equality, workload, and job security, we will be balloting for industrial action in September/October. Before then, we need to make sure that our membership records are absolutely correct, so that the union can send the ballot papers to members at the right addresses. Make sure your vote is included! Log on to MyUCU (www.ucu.org.uk/myucu) and check that it shows the postal address that you want ballots sent to. It’s up to you whether you prefer that to be your home or work address. Whilst you are on MyUCU, it’s a good idea to check that your other details are correct. Thank you! … continue reading

Report on UCU Congress 2019

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UCU’s annual congress is its supreme policy making body and it met this year over the May Bank Holiday in Harrogate. This report is an attempt to summarise three very full days of intense and important debates on the various areas with which UCU is concerned. Motion numbers are included in brackets for reference: a full account of all motions with decisions can be found here: www.ucu.org.uk/Congress2019 Congress business is ordered according to the business of various committees: equality; education; recruitment, organising and campaigning (ROC) and strategy and finance. There was a further section on democracy and rule changes. On the second day of congress, delegates divide into a Higher Education Sector Conference and a Further Education Sector Conference. The agenda was very busy indeed. As a result, some motions could not be debated. Those relating to rule changes will be sent to the special Democracy Conference to be held in November; the rest are remitted to the National Executive Committee (NEC) for decision. Leeds University UCU sent five branch delegates to Congress: Arunima Bhattacharya; Dima Chami, Laura Loyola, Megan Povey and Chloe Wallace. In addition, Lesley McGorrigan attended as delegate from the Yorkshire and Humberside Regional Committee, and Vicky … continue reading

General Secretary election

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UCU members should have received their ballot papers for the General Secretary election by now (or will receive them very soon). Remember that, as with all formal ballots, UCU is legally required to conduct this via post (we are forbidden in law to do this electronically). Please use your vote, and make sure you post it in good time to arrive by the deadline of 23 May. If your ballot paper hasn’t arrived you can request a new one here. The General Secretary is a crucial role. The GS is the ‘face’ of union campaigns and our public and media presence, our relationship with our employer and the wider public. It’s our hope that every single Leeds UCU member will vote in the General Secretary election. Hustings It hasn’t been possible to organise a hustings event in Leeds as we had hoped, as the campaign period is very short and we’d wanted to make sure all three candidates could attend. However, Cambridge UCU filmed their hustings which you can watch online for an excellent introduction to the candidates’ views and approaches. Also, all three have agreed to answer questions from Leeds members in a ‘virtual hustings’. We asked members to … continue reading

UCU national officer and national executive committee elections

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Members will have received in the post, from the Electoral Reform Society, a ballot paper to vote in the UK wide UCU elections. The mailing included printed election addresses for all the candidates for each position, and a voting form which you need to fill in and send back by post. The voting deadline is Friday 1st March, so you’ll need to post your ballot paper by Wednesday 27th February. Voting is by Single Transferable Vote, which means you can put 1 by your first preference, 2 by your second preference and so on (the instructions in the mailing provide more detail about how this works). Note: this ballot is not to be confused with voting in the industrial action ballot, which is of course hugely important! Full details of the national elections are on the UCU website here: www.ucu.org.uk/article/9677/UCU-National-officer-and-national-executive-committee-elections-in-2018-19 The Vice President post is particularly important as the elected candidate will go on to be President of our union in 2021-22. The candidates for this post, with links to their websites, are: Vicky Blake (currently President of Leeds UCU) – website and downloadable leafletJo McNeill (currently President of Liverpool UCU) – website and downloadable leafletAdam Ozanne (currently Secretary of Manchester UCU) – … continue reading