Why you really do need to vote – from a reluctant striker

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Chloe and colleagues outside the School of Law during the USS pension strike A personal post from new UCU committee member Chloe Wallace When I look back over our strike action in February and March, I have a lot of good memories: standing with friends old and new; the support of my colleagues and students; the feeling of empowerment and hope for the future. But all in all, it wasn’t much fun. Quite apart from the snow, the rain, and the pay deduction, there was disruption to the job I love and the students I’m committed to, anxiety in such an uncertain situation, and an ever-present feeling of guilt. When it was over, I breathed a sigh of relief; back to normal at least for a while.  So my heart sank when it became clear that we would have to ballot on striking yet again for a fairer deal on equality, casualization and pay. We, individually and collectively, have too much to do, and university staff and students don’t deserve more disruption after what we dealt with this year. We talked about fairness, equality and casualisation on the pickets and on #striketwitter throughout and beyond the action. We know they matter and that … continue reading

Capturing the energy and strength of the strikes – new UCU reps for your workplace

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Let’s capture this energy and strength and take it back to our offices. When we’ve won this dispute (and we will win), let’s create a network of UCU reps across the university so we can supercharge our campaigns for secure jobs, for lower workloads, and for equality. For each workplace let’s get: a UCU department rep a UCU anti-casualisation rep (a member not on a permanent contract) a UCU postgraduate rep a UCU health and safety rep (this network of new health and safety reps will work to show how excessive workloads are a a matter of health which the university must take more seriously)   To join our new massive network of reps, ask two colleagues in your workplace (UCU members) to email ucu@leeds.ac.uk by 10 April* nominating you for one of these roles.     You can see from the list below that there are workplaces with no UCU rep, so let’s get all those gaps filled and more!   The list below includes current UCU department reps and members of the elected UCU committee), and reps who are covering other workplaces as well as their own, such as in the school of languages, cultures and societies, which is broken down … continue reading

Calling for a £500 thank you for delivering for the university

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The University of Leeds is the Times and Sunday Times University of the Year 2017. We’re proud of that, and we’re proud of the excellent work we do here. The three staff unions – UCU, Unison and Unite – wrote jointly to the Vice-Chancellor to ask for a thank you for all our hard work. We suggested a flat payment of £500 before Christmas would be a welcome way to thank staff for our collective achievement. The Vice-Chancellor subsequently emailed staff about giving an extra day’s annual leave as a thank you. If the university management had discussed this idea with us first we could have warned them that many people would be disappointed or even angered by the suggestion (as proved the case) because they already feel they have to not take all of their annual leave each year because of their workloads, or if they do take an extra day the work will still be there for them on their return. We have discussed the concerns members raised with us with the Vice-Chancellor. The three unions have agreed to ask all union members to sign a petition requesting a £500 bonus. Please sign!  You can sign on paper … continue reading