Category Archives: Gender pay gap

Members make dispute decisions at Extraordinary General Meeting

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Members of UCU University of Leeds Branch met today (22 January 2020) to discuss and make decisions about the current disputes. Members agreed on the following motions: USS pensions dispute and ‘Four fights’ dispute Motion 1 This branch acknowledges the need to fight back against increasing casualisation, damaging workloads, antiquated gender and race pay gaps and a decade long erosion of our pay. This branch notes the decision of the HEC to coordinate ballot distribution and strike days for the Four Fights and USS disputes. This strategy allowed for UCU’s most successful ballot turnout results on pay ever and led to eight days of impactful strike action which is empowering our national negotiators. This branch recognises the need to increase pressure at this point and that in order to win we have to move towards escalating our industrial strategy. This branch supports this existing strategy towards our two ongoing disputes in HE, and believes that strike action in pursuit of the Four Fights should continue to escalate simultaneously with action over USS, beginning with the 14 days endorsed by HESC in December 2019. Motion 2 Motion about the Formulation of Strategy for the Next Round of Industrial Action This branch … continue reading

News on negotiations, the digital picket line, hot breakfasts and more

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Text from branch president Ben Plumpton’s email to members 27th November Negotiations The most important thing to tell you is that our UCU negotiators on pay and conditions met with UCEA, the employers organization, on Tuesday. See UCU’s statement about that meeting.  This is really important, because it shows it only took one day of solid striking and record breaking pickets to get UCEA to do what they should have done weeks ago; sit down and talk. However, they are still not willing to talk about pay. We need to push them harder on this, because stopping pay erosion is central to our claim and low pay is one of the issues which creates pay gaps and which exacerbates the already impossible position of casualised staff.  UCEA are now consulting with university leaders. We need to send our Vice-Chancellor a clear message that our claims are urgent and that we won’t settle for anything other than substantial change.  For those striking, please stand firm. We need to sustain our action. We want to make our pickets (physical and digital) bigger, louder and clearer, so help us make some noise over the next few days.If you are not yet striking, please come out … continue reading

Brilliant picketing today, and come to our fantastic fundraiser gig

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Text from branch president Ben Plumpton’s email to members 25th November It was great to see so many of you picketing today, thank you!  I think it was the most pickets we’ve had round our campus, and special thanks to those who were picketing for the first time, hope you enjoyed it despite the rain…  We were blown away by the support and enthusiasm from students at the Parkinson steps rally, it was brilliant. Check out some photos from today tweeted by the branch account at https://twitter.com/leedsucu  Keep on tweeting and Facebooking and everything (use #UCUstrikes and tag @leedsucu) – we love seeing your photos.   Hope to see you all back again tomorrow.  If you havent picketed before, no need to feel nervous, come along to the pink gazebo near the main entrance as early as you can in the morning and we’ll find you a buddy to stand with.Remember, every day picketing is happening from 7:30 am (come as early as you can manage) and a rally on the Parkinson steps at 11:30. The ever-growing Leeds UCU songbook is here:  https://tinyurl.com/t7vsy8e – bookmark it on your phone so you can sing along at the rallies.  We might have to do ‘Striking in … continue reading

Eve of strike info

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Text from branch president Ben Plumpton’s email to members 22nd November Dear members, First, apologies if you have sent a query to me or to ucu@leeds.ac.uk and you haven’t received a personal reply yet.  We’ve had a LOT of messages.  I hope that the comprehensive FAQ at https://www.ucu.org.uk/heaction will answer most questions.  You could also watch the video of today’s live Q&A session with Jo Grady, UCU General Secretary. Picketing! Thank you to everyone who has signed up already.  You can just turn up on the day, but it’s helpful to get an indication of how many people we can expect, please sign up here.The pink gazebo will be at the main entrance from 7:30 am every day – please come here first to sign in and get placards and leaflets.We’ll suggest where to go with the aim of covering all the entrances, but if you have a particular preference (e.g. if you prefer to picket outside your nearest entrance, or the opposite) you can tell us when you sign in.If you haven’t picketed before, we’ll make sure you’re with someone who’s experienced (not that it’s difficult, honestly).Wrap up warm with waterproofs/umbrella – the weather forecast at the moment is “light rain and a gentle breeze”.We’d … continue reading