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

TThe university’s lists system doesn’t seem to be sending this email out to our members – so here is our latest email for all to read! UCU local news: remember to vote; international members survey; improving the adverse weather policy; lots more! Dear UCU members – A few brief updates for you: Strike ballot – remember to vote, don’t be silenced Need a replacement ballot paper? Want to know how this ballot applies to you? Want to tell us you’ve voted? See our frequently asked questions Election for UCU national vice president – our Vicky Blake on the ballot paper The election for UCU national vice president opens on Friday 1 February. Our fantastic president Vicky Blake is one of the candidates. We’re holding a hustings on 12 February at 12pm. International staff survey Our international staff survey is live now. It’s open to non-members too, so pass it on to your friends and colleagues! leedsucu.org.uk/international-staff-survey New adverse weather policy We’ve made improvements to this policy before the university published it, to emphasise staff health and safety over keeping the university running. You shouldn’t feel pressured to come into work if it’s not safe to. leedsucu.org.uk/unions-improve-new-adverse-weather-policy Help us beat casualisation … continue reading

Our carol singing at lunchtime last week was great fun – the enthusiasm and gusto of the ‘UCU choir’ made up for any lack of musicality! Some students were so delighted they took away the song sheets to share! Thanks to everyone who sent in lyrics – even managing to get ‘casualisation’ into one of the carols. Lyrics can be downloaded [here] in case you’d like to sing our alternative words with family and friends over Christmas… Here’s just one of our videos: UCU Jingle Bells!  You can watch more on our YouTube account – scroll down for links to Rudolph the Union Reindeer and White Christmas / Dreaming of a Fair Pay Rise! We also held a ‘Get The Vote Out’ planning meeting on 17th December with mulled punch, mince pies and parkin, which made an excellent start to our work around the re-ballot starting in the New Year on the Casualisation, Equality, Pay and Workload dispute.  Please contact ucu@leeds.ac.uk if you’d like to get involved. Leeds UCU committee wishes everyone a great break over the festive season.  Hope you get a chance to rest and recuperate, and we look forward to seeing you in the New Year. … continue reading