Category Archives: Campaigns

Members’ organising meeting – 16 July

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After the success of our Members’ Organising Meeting last term, we’re organising another! Come along on Monday 16th July, from 12-1pm – we’ll be in Michael Sadler LG15. Please feel free to bring your lunch so we can eat together, and any efforts at baking to share are very welcome!  All members are invited and encouraged to attend this meeting to discuss and plan our next steps in campaigning and negotiating. This will include looking at the Pay and Equality claim and linking to local campaigns on (anti-)casualisation, equal pay, workload, and stress. We’ll also discuss where we are with the USS pensions dispute look at the timeline for when we’ll be expecting reports and recommendations from the Joint Expert Panel (JEP).  The meeting will have a very practical focus and we again ask all members to bring their creativity and big thinking brains along. There are lots of things that everyone can get involved in – big or small – and all members are welcome! If you would like to send ideas in advance that would be really useful, as we can start building our List Of Things To Do that volunteers can sign up for at the meeting. Email us on ucu@leeds.ac.uk or DM us on … continue reading

All three staff unions write to HR to complain about misrepresenting pay offer

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Today, all three campus unions (UCU, Unison, Unite) have jointly written to the Director of HR, to complain about attempts contained in HR communications to misdirect staff in about the current pay and equality negotiations. This is a repeated complaint about behaviour we have also raised in previous rounds of national pay negotiations. Please see below this email for the full text. Please remember we have until 12 noon on Wednesday 27 June to vote in our internal, “indicative ballot” over whether to accept UCEA’s pay and equality offer in response to the joint union claim. UCU advises that you vote to REJECT the pay offer and to vote YES to a willingness to take industrial action. See [here] for a reminder of why UCU advises this in light of a derisory pay offer (especially when placed in context of pay erosion) and very little of note offered on the equality and casualisation aspects of the joint claim. It also reminds you how to find the link to make your vote, and what to do if you can’t find the email. Turnout really matters, and will strengthen the hand of our negotiators – please vote asap! See also [here] for analysis of how the latest pay offer compares with pay settlements elsewhere. *** Dear … continue reading

Vote! Pay + Equality Claim (UCU consultative ballot)

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(Text of email sent to all Leeds UCU members on 8 June 2018) You will have had (or should shortly receive) a very important email from UCU entitled “UCU Pay and equality consultation”. (If you have not received it, please click [here] for a replacement). This is a vital UCU internal consultative ballot (the stage before an ‘official’ ballot which, by law, would need to be conducted by post). As ever, we ask all members to vote by the 27 June deadline. Turnout matters and is a way of showing and building strength in itself. We are also asking members to observe the recommendations on which the national negotiators, the Higher Education Committee, and the annual Higher Education Sector Conference last week are united… Key Information (in brief):  Even conservative assessments (including [Michael Otsuka’s]) show declining real-terms pay, and that’s before you factor in casualisation, discrimination, the effect of workload inflation, etc. Therefore: Please vote to REJECT the pay offer in question 1 Please vote YES to taking sustained industrial action if that is needed in question 2 (See attached picture) The proportion of university expenditure spent on staff has fallen to just 54.7%, while reserves held by institutions have increased by 259% and capital expenditure by 34.9%. It’s about time money was … continue reading

The Precarious Postdoc: Interdisciplinary Research and Casualised Labour in the Humanities and Social Sciences

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This important piece of work by Catherine Oakley, UCU University of Leeds member, and Sophie A Jones shows the mess of precarity facing postdocs, specifically in Humanities and Social Sciences but notes many of these bad practices started in Stem subjects, and proposes how faculty research leads, funding bodies and university senior management teams can fix these problems. The local UCU committee and UCU anticasualisation reps will work hard to try to get these recommendations implemented at the University of Leeds. We all deserve job security. http://www.workingknowledgeps.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/WKPS_PrecariousPostdoc_PDF_Interactive.pdf   continue reading

Vote in University Council Elections!

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Your chance to vote for two elected positions on University Council is here, and it closes at 12 noon on Friday 18 May! There are also elections for several University committees – please use your votes! You will have received, or will soon receive an email entitled “Online Voting” from Electoral Reform Services. Vicky Blake, current UCU Branch President and Mark Taylor-Batty, former UCU Branch President and current member of University Council, are both standing for election for University Council.  Both Vicky and Mark have worked very hard to represent UCU members over several years.  Please do consider voting for them in the University Council election. Their statements are available via the voting link, and below: Vicky Blake – Election statement for Council Healthy university communities hold democratic representation and accountable decision-making at their heart. I will represent ordinary university staff members’ concerns in matters of governance, with deep commitment to transparency and rigour. As an elected University Senator for two years, and through elected UCU positions at the University of Leeds, I know many staff feel disenfranchised from university governance structures. I seek change: increased openness will facilitate engagement with how these structures work. I work in Educational Engagement … continue reading