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Two ballots – vote now!

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Your ballot papers should have arrived – look out for a white A4 envelope with the UCU logo. If you can’t find it, request a new one at www.ucu.org.uk/ballotrequest  For queries about the ballot process please check our ballots FAQ. Please vote now – don’t let that envelope disappear under piles on your desk! It’s really important to have your democratic say, and your union needs to know what you think. The two disputes are linked. Inequality and casualisation in employment lead to inequality in retirement. Pay stagnation will reduce our incomes in retirement as well as squeezing us right now. Increased pension contributions mostly wipe out the tiny pay increase that has been imposed. Four fights dispute We were not impressed by the employers response to our annual pay and conditions claim. Pay inequality, casualisation, and excessive workloads are all significant problems at Leeds, as elsewhere. We had hoped that this year, the employers’ side (represented by UCEA) would negotiate sensible national agreements on these issues which matter so much to staff, often more so than pay. This has not happened – they were unwilling to discuss these issues meaningfully. On pay, the offer is yet another below inflation pay … continue reading

Ballots FAQ September/October 2019

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Where will I find my ballot papers? Look out for a white A4 envelope with the UCU logo on it. It will either come to your home address or at work (check your pigeonhole), depending on which address you chose when you completed your UCU registration or updated your membership record on MyUCU.  Log in to MyUCU to check and/ or update this at www.ucu.org.uk/myucu If your ballot paper hasn’t arrived by now you should request a new one at www.ucu.org.uk/ballotrequest You will need your membership number – if you don’t know it, you can email mynumber@mercury.ucu.org.uk using the email address that UCU holds for you and your membership number will be emailed back. How do I use my ballot papers? There is a pre-paid envelope in your voting pack. Detach each A4 ballot paper and vote twice on each (once about strike action, and once about action short of a strike) by putting crosses in the boxes. Fold each ballot paper and put both in the pre-paid envelope and seal. You shouldnt post back the paper with your address on. Why are there two ballot papers, couldn’t it all be on one? Only pre-92 universities are in the USS pension … continue reading

Supporting Youth Strike for Climate on 20th September: 30-minute solidarity stoppage and march

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The three campus trade unions at this university wrote to the Vice Chancellor asking for staff to be given an additional 30 minutes paid leave to take part in activities supporting the Youth Strike for Climate on Friday 20th September. We are pleased that this has been agreed, and staff can add the 30 minutes on to their normal lunch break, so we can visibly support the local Leeds group. See details about the University’s support for this stoppage. This is an emergency! The Amazon is going up in smoke and could soon reach breaking point, with large parts of this incredible ecosystem collapsing before our eyes. Greenland is melting faster than ever before, and Central Africa is up in flames. Climate change isn’t a distant threat – it is here already. And yet our governments are supporting ever more fossil fuel extraction and doing far too little. That’s why, just before a crucial UN climate summit, children all over the world are taking to the streets, and calling on everyone to join them. With right wing climate change deniers presiding over so many powerful world states our participation on the streets to force change is more important than ever. … continue reading

2019/20 pay offer to be implemented in September

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Text from branch president Ben Plumpton’s email to members You’ll have seen today’s email to [Allstaff] about the pay offer. In case the mention of 3.65% rises had you feeling hopeful, note that this was only for scale points 2 and 3. From Grade 5 upwards it’ll be just 1.8%. Suggesting that increments are a form of wage rise is also misleading – this is an entirely different matter.  Many people are stuck at the top of their scales anyway and so won’t get any increment. A 1.8% rise is a pretty poor in comparison to average wage rise growth in the UK, currently at 3.9% (see for example https://www.theguardian.com/money/2019/aug/13/uk-wages-rise-at-fastest-rate-for-a-decade-despite-brexit-risks) The value of our salaries has fallen by over 20% since 2009 as a consequence of below inflation increases for many years, and whilst this is just one concern among many that we have about our working conditions, it is a critical indication of the worth that universities like ours place on their staff.  You will also have realised that the extra pension contributions from October (see my email yesterday) will instantly eat up almost all of this pay “rise”. Vitally important parts of our annual pay and conditions claim … continue reading

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

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