Latest news from Leeds UCU

UCU University of Leeds Branch Posted on by 
Text of email sent to branch members by branch president Ben Plumpton on 20 August 2020

Dear members,

I hope you are coping OK in these difficult times and that you and your families and friends are well.  There’s a lot to update you on  – so read on!  Also look out for a separate email with news about annual leave.  

Contents:
1. Redundancies and ending of fixed term contracts
2. Health and safety update
3. New university organisational change and redundancy policies
4. Return to campus questionnaire
5. Working from home costs
6. Could you offer to become a caseworker?
7. UCU levy
8. Elections to Senate
9. Fund the Future
10. Next Vice President of UCU
11. What next on our Four Fights dispute?
12. UCU webinars, and how to get involved

1. Redundancies and ending of fixed term contracts

Management told us they were intending to make 28 redundancies of staff employed for more than 4 years by the end of October, and a further 10 by the end of February.  Some of these have now been averted after extensions and redeployments, but we are urgently asking for discussions with management about the individuals remaining under threat in order to avoid redundancies.  In addition large numbers of staff on fixed term contracts are seeing their contracts come to an end, and although many were renewed earlier in the year, we are concerned that many of these colleagues are at serious risk now. We have been arguing that the university has a moral, academic, practical and financial duty to renew these contracts. Contract renewals have to be agreed by the Head of School/Faculty and approved by the University Executive Group, and we are supporting many members in arguing their cases. We gather that management are waiting to see how student admissions go, including international students, but we need to be ready in case of any proposals in the autumn for significant job cuts or pay cuts like some other universities are doing.  Let us know (ucu@leeds.ac.uk) if you need casework support on this.

2. Health and safety update

Neil Maughan, our Health and Safety Officer, has been in constant contact with university Health and Safety staff, along with his equivalents from the other campus trade unions, to ensure that appropriate measures are taken to protect those staff and students already on campus, and for those returning to campus. This includes for example re-opening of buildings, provision of face masks, social distancing guidance, use of office space, ‘track and trace’ and testing on campus.  We’ll update you more soon.

3. New university organisational change and redundancy policies

Branch officers have been in discussions for some time with HR and in negotiations with management at JCUU (the Joint Committee of the University and UCU) about these new policies. Some improvements have been made to the original proposals, but there were serious issues remaining unresolved. Management have nevertheless imposed these policies by passing them at University Council in July. Yesterday’s email from Internal Comms might imply that your union had agreed these policies – this is not the case, and nor are we happy with the approach of imposing rather than reaching agreement through negotiation. The imposed redundancy policy is at http://www.leeds.ac.uk/secretariat/ordinances.html#XXVI and the imposed organisational change policy is at https://hr.leeds.ac.uk/download/downloads/id/48/policy_for_implementing_an_organisational_restructure

4. Return to campus questionnaire

A questionnaire is being used to collect information so that local management can plan how the return to campus can be done whilst protecting those staff and their families who have health or other concerns that would make campus more risky for them. Managers are supposed to plan work so that staff without such concerns could be asked to return sooner than those at risk, so collecting this data will avoid guesses based on partial or inaccurate knowledge. If you are uneasy about sharing this information with your manager, perhaps worried about how the information might be used in future, you can request a confidential conversation with your local HR Manager instead of filling in the form. Then the HR manager will tell the Head of School/Service if you shouldn’t be among the first returning to campus, without giving all the details. We are asking for some improvements to this form, for example about the questions on caring responsibilities, where it says the expectation is that, if a family member can cover caring responsibilities you should say caring responsiblities have no impact on your return to campus. Families have been sharing and juggling care responsibilities under great pressure for many months, and it’s likely that other family members are also employed so wouldn’t be able to take over caring. The form should also include issues relevant to migrant staff. 

5. Working from home costs

We are still trying to get management to compensate staff for additional costs of working from home, particularly where these costs are significant. And this will become more important once heating costs increase. Watch out for updates on this.

6. Could you offer to become a caseworker?

There are a lot of members seeking union support at the moment, and our existing caseworkers are mostly at full capacity, so this sadly often means a delay in getting a caseworker. UCU HQ have offered to put on a special online casework course for us, if 15 members want to do it. The course will taught over 3 weeks with 3 course meetings and some pre-course work, dates and times to be confirmed. Going on the course doesn’t commit you to becoming a caseworker, it would be suitable for anyone thinking they might be interested and wanting to know more. Email ucu@leeds.ac.uk if this could be you!

7. UCU levy

You’ll remember that UCU nationally announced a levy of members to replenish the Fighting Fund which provides financial support to members taking strike action. This branch and many others wanted to avoid lower paid members being charged the levy. After donations from branches (Leeds gave £15,000 as agreed at the last branch General Meeting) and individual members, those earning under £20,000 will now be exempt from the levy. Our branch also agreed to cover the levy for any members earning under £30,000 or who are in particular difficulty and who request it.  To request this, once the levy has been taken from your account, please email ucu@leeds.ac.uk with the subject “Levy request”, including a screenshot of your bank statement showing the levy and your bank details. Some generous members offered to pay the levy for low paid members – if this was you, thank you very much but that’s not now needed, perhaps you could donate to the national Fighting Fund? (https://www.ucu.org.uk/fightingfund) 

8. Elections to Senate

An election has just been announced for faculty-specific places for next year. We’d encourage members to stand – it’s important for there to be independent voices on Senate able to raise issues important to staff. Sadly, there are often unfilled places which is a shame for democracy. If you are considering standing and would like a chat about what it’s like, email ucu@leeds.ac.uk and we’ll put you in touch with a newish senator. General info about Senate is at http://www.leeds.ac.uk/secretariat/senate.html  And of course, once voting starts (electronically), please use your vote.NB Academic-related staff who aren’t in a faculty need to ‘affiliate’ themselves to a faculty for the purpose of these elections. To do this, email Helen Pickersgill in the Secretariat (h.j.pickersgill@adm.leeds.ac.uk) specifying which faculty you want to be affiliated to.

9. Fund the Future

You will have seen emails from Jo Grady, the UCU General Secretary, about UCU’s Fund the Future campaign, to get the government to sensibly fund post-16 education. Please help this campaign by writing to your MP, which is easy to do using the online tool at https://fundthefuture.org.uk/your-mp/

10. Next Vice President of UCU

Don’t forget to vote in this UCU election! The elected Vice President will become President in 2023-24. There is also an election for an LGBT+ represenative.  Voting papers should have arrived in the post to your home address a while ago – if you can’t find them, get a replacement at https://www.ucu.org.uk/election-ballot-request. The candidates’ statements are at https://www.ucu.org.uk/cvs-elections, also with a video hustings where you can hear about the candidates’ priorities for UCU and watch them answering questions from members. Deadline for voting is 15th September.

11. What next on our Four Fights dispute?

The result of the consultative ballot on whether to accept the employers’ ‘final offer’ was to reject it. The union needs to decide what to do next, and a special online Higher Education Sector Conference on this has been called for 30th September. We will have our first branch General Meeting of the academic year earlier than usual, on Tuesday 15th September, in order to elect delegates and agree any motions the branch wants to submit to that conference. Please put the date in your diary now!

12. UCU webinars, and how to get involved

Last but by no means least, UCU has been holding some excellent online webinars to discuss key issues for the union. These are recorded and can be watched via UCU’s YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQVEcHoeCPvfwlv_Hof1TeA  The one on supporting migrant staff features our branch Equality Officer, Dima Chami, and committee member Laura Loyola-Hernandez, who were involved in setting up UCU’s Migrant Members’ Standing Committee. Watch these, be inspired, and contact ucu@leeds.ac.uk to join one of our branch working groups! (Groups include Equality, Anti-casualisation, Workloads, Disability, Recruitment & Organising, Action Group, University Finance, Climate & Ecological Emergency).  Want to do something for the union but don’t have much time?  Talk to a colleague and ask them to join UCU – the more members we have, the stronger we will be and the more able to support you and to challenge/prevent future management appallingness.

Thank you for reading all this, thank you for everything you do for the union, and do get in touch if you have any concerns or queries (email ucu@leeds.ac.uk for support).

I hope you have some good times over the (rest of the) summer, and I look forward to seeing you at the next UCU General Meeting on 15th September.

In solidarity,

Ben Plumpton
Pronouns: She/Her/Hers
University of Leeds UCU President

Minutes of general meeting 28 April 2020

UCU University of Leeds Branch Posted on by 
In the event of difference between the web version and the minutes agreed at the branch general meeting 14 May, the latter is the correct version. (Formatting is the most likely difference.)

General meeting

Tuesday 28 April 2020, 1pm – 2pm
Video meeting

Minutes

Chaired by branch president Ben Plumpton

Agreed to restrict speeches to 3 minutes for movers and 2 for debate.

Minutes of the previous meetings

7 November 2019 EGM. Minutes agreed.

22 January 2020 EGM. Minutes agreed.

2 March general meeting. Minutes agreed.

Local update

Update on local discussions with university senior management. We are meeting with HR regularly. We’re concerned about how frequently we’re being informed about decisions rather than being consulted on them. We’re not being involved in the decisions of the university executive group (UEG) – we’re being frozen out of decisions about how the university proceeds. Fixed term contracts is a priority – we’ve asked for extensions for all staff. The university made a minor extension to the end of May for most but we are trying to impress upon them the urgency of extensions for all staff as soon as possible particularly while the job market is frozen. There has been confirmation about how furlough will apply to universities, which is being worked through – the government says the scheme doesn’t apply where there is public funding. They have confirmed they will top up the government’s 80% of salary to 100% for furloughed staff. They are still exploring which staff can be furloughed. We’re asking them to pay for visa extensions and NHS surcharges.

On working from home, many staff are unable to do a full day’s work. HR are supportive face to face but haven’t changed the guidance to be as supportive as it should be. We’re pushing for better support and equipment for everyone, especially those needing reasonable adjustments. The University is treating is as temporary. Our advice is if it’s not safe stop and contact us. University has issued survey – we had no involvement or consultation – there are no demographic or equality questions. We have done our own survey which is better and in more depth so we can make more use of the data.

Sprung on us last week was that the university would like to introduce a new lecture capture policy. We are being consulted we have many concerns we will be circulating a draft.

We need everyone who has influence to use it however they can – officers and committee are working very hard, let’s all work together and make our presence felt.

Get in touch with us if things are happening. Decisions are being made at UEG and a lot of things are being worked out are school and faculty level.

National update

UCU Congress was due to happen in May but has had to be postponed due to coronavirus and we don’t yet know what alternative arrangements will be made.  UCU’s UK committees are continuing to meet electronically.

Negotiations on the ‘Four Fights’ and USS disputes are continuing.  Further information is expected soon about the next steps, including a mechanism for branches to feed into the Higher Education Committee on these disputes.

Motion 1: Securing staff on casualised contracts

Casualised workers make up approximately 70% of researchers nationally in HE, and between 25-30% of the teaching staff in many universities. Like everybody, casualised university workers are struggling with the global crisis brought on by COVID-19, and are particularly likely to see our contracts terminate (while our Vice Chancellors are continuing to pay themselves salaries of £253,000 on average — many much more — from taxpayer money). There is no indication that this pandemic will be over any time soon, and some estimates suggest it could affect us up to 18 months or longer, which will take us through the next academic year at least. This does not even reflect longer-term economic impacts beyond the immediate tragedy of the pandemic itself. While this crisis continues, casualised staff members across the university — often the lowest paid on campus — must not be forgotten, and should receive guaranteed income along with permanent staff.

This branch recognises:

  • that universities have already agreed to address casualisation due to the inordinate amount of suffering it causes, which will only be intensified by COVID-19
  • that casualised staff whose contracts are ending will find it almost impossible to secure employment during a global pandemic, especially when university hiring is expected to freeze. This impacts international staff disproportionately whose immigration status are tied to their employment status. International staff face the threat of ‘legal limbo’ which is compounded by “No recourse to public funds”.
  • that casually employed university workers (including hourly staff, fixed-term staff, and PhD students/GTAs) perform crucial, often poorly compensated, work, and deserve the same security as permanent colleagues, including contract renewals, extensions, or continued pay for the duration of the crisis
  • that departments are going to need increased capacity as a result of the crisis, given potential illness of colleagues and the switch to remote working, making the work done by casualised staff even more essential
  • This branch therefore demands an immediate contractual guarantee of two years of work at or above the current level of remuneration, for all casualised university staff.

This branch resolves to:

  • Call on members to support the @CoronaContracts campaign and to sign the national open letter on casual contracts: https://coronacontract.org
  • Call on our University to support the principle of guaranteed employment for two years for all casualised staff and, if necessary, to seek to apply the government’s job retention scheme to all eligible precarious staff, which must be topped up by our University to cover 100% of wages
  • Call on our university to support the welfare of research staff on fixed term contracts who are funded by external research bodies. Where any projects are adversely affected, the university should work with research bodies in order to ensure any/all extensions are funded and any/all gaps in income are covered
  • Call on our University to enter into full and open consultation on any proposed redundancies, including redeploying staff instead of terminating them, and to confirm that staff on fixed term contracts will not be discriminated against or automatically dismissed and support international staff on visa extensions and renewals
  • Call for protections for postgraduate students including extensions of scholarships, protections around access to paid work, suspension of fees for self-funded students and students in their fourth year of study, and to suspend deadlines and annual reviews

Moved by Arunima Bhattacharya. Seconded by Steven French. Carried.

Motion 2

This branch notes:

That COVID-19 has created a significant crisis in Higher Education, with reports that Universities are likely to be very badly hit financially;

That the core reason for this is the current HE funding model which makes university funding largely dependent on student fees, and a consequent strategic approach taken by institutions such as Leeds which creates high dependence on international student fees specifically;

That there is a legitimate concern that universities, including the University of Leeds, will try to impose job cuts and major restructures under the guise of emergency COVID-19 planning

That the most vulnerable staff, particularly staff on casualised contracts, on visas, and with disabilities, caring responsibilities and mental health, are those most likely to be impacted by badly thought- through responses to the crisis;

That Durham University is reported already to be planning wholesale moves towards online teaching as a response to COVID-19, which is unworkable in terms of staff expertise and workload; is pedagogically undesirable and is very likely to be an insufficient response to the challenges posted;

This branch:

  • Urges the University to engage in meaningful consultation with campus trades unions about the University’s response to the COVID-19 crisis
  • Resolves robustly to defend jobs and working conditions throughout the crisis and beyond
  • Resolves in particular to resist any strategic or organisational changes, in particular to modes of teaching, which are not wholly justified by the emergency measures required to respond to the COVID-19 crisis
  • Agrees to send a message of solidarity and support to Durham University UCU in fighting off deleterious management plans
  • Request that the university open their books in good faith (in case of threat of redundancies or pay cuts) and to mitigate against job losses. Including an account of current and future investments and what is planned, re buildings etc and details around governance restrictions on reserves.

Moved by Chloe Wallace. Seconded by Adam Booth. Amendment moved by Kate Hardy agreed. Motion as text above carried.

Motion 3

“Leeds University UCU notes the detailed equality and mutual dignity policies attached and linked below.

The University however, breaches its own policies by setting non-binary trans staff up to be dead named by the university and their colleagues through its failure to provide gender choices beyond female/male.

We note that dead naming is not a theoretical policy, it is currently happening to staff in this university.

We note that the University has systems that do not link properly; thus deadnames remain in the systems. Deadnaming is an act of violence.

This branch insists that the following choices are offered to all staff.

Female / Gender Fluid / Male / Non-Binary / Other (If Other is picked, no further definition is requested.)

We further note that the university states that its guidance on trans staff is ‘under review’. We are unaware that staff unions have been involved or informed of this review of policies which form part of our terms and conditions of service.”

University policies: https://equality.leeds.ac.uk/equality-inclusion-framework/policies/

https://equality.leeds.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/64/2020/04/Trans-equality-policy-statement_Final_v1.pdf

https://equality.leeds.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/64/2020/04/Guidance-for-Trans-Staff-and-Students-FINAL-v1.pdf

Moved by Megan Povey. Megan’s amendment proposed by Simon Joyce, seconded by Alan Roe, carried. Motion as text above carried.

Motion 4: Home working cost reimbursement

The government website indicates an amount of £26 per month that employers can pay to employees working from home (without paperwork to account for the extra electricity etc). https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/employment-income-manual/eim32815   . Leeds University UCU demands that the UoL does this for all staff with effect from 23 March 2020. 

Proposed by Lesley McGorrigan, seconded by Alan Roe. Carried

Motion 5: Carrying over annual leave

Leeds UCU demands that the UoL agrees for staff to carry over annual leave not taken during covid-crisis to the next two years, as outlined on this Government documents for some workers: 

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/rules-on-carrying-over-annual-leave-to-be-relaxed-to-support-key-industries-during-covid-19

Proposed by Lesley McGorrigan, seconded by Alan Roe. Carried.

Any other urgent business (please notify the president before the start of the meeting)

Action short of a strike ends today.

Reminder to fill in branch survey.

If members wish to raise any matters arising from previous meeting at the next general meeting, please could they email ucu@leeds.ac.uk to let the president know.

Union survey – online and home working in HE at the time of the Covic-19 pandemic

UCU University of Leeds Branch Posted on by

(Update 30th April – the university survey closed on 29th April)

Our branch has put together a survey aiming to collect evidence to inform trade union policies and to shape a collective response to the enforced fast move to working online and remotely.  We want to find out more about your experiences and concerns, including Health and Safety, work intensification and a sustainable work/life balance, the responses and adjustments by management, the differential impacts on different groups of workers (eg by contractual (in)security, gender, age, care duties, disability, access to equipment) and longer term implications. This survey is for all staff and is being sent out by the three campus trade unions.  We would be most grateful if you could fill it in and share it with colleagues as widely as possible.  The survey will close on 12th May and we will report on it to the Leeds UCU AGM.

We are aware that the university has recently circulated a (much shorter!) survey about working from home and we would ask members to fill that in as well (there is a free text box at the end where you can give detailed views and we would encourage you to do so).  Our survey is intended for a different purpose (to inform unions policies and strengthen our negotiations) and is aimed to capture more in-depth personal experiences of working from home.  So please complete both if you possibly can.

To complete the union survey visit https://yoursay.ucu.org.uk/s3/UCU-Leeds-online-and-home-working-in-HE-at-the-time-of-the-Covic-19-pandemic 

Thank you to the colleagues who put together this survey, and thanks in advance to you for filling it in and sharing it.

Casework – postponement of most formal hearings

UCU University of Leeds Branch Posted on by

There are ongoing discussions between UCU and HR about the postponement of formal hearings and other casework. HR have drafted some principles on casework which they will be sharing with UCU reps for us to comment on. The broad principles they’re working on at the moment are:

  • To put capability cases on hold, because they believe it will be difficult to monitor improvements during the lockdown. UCU reps agree this is the right decision at this stage, because of the pressures most us are under with home circumstances or the emotional pressures of the crisis. We are concerned however about extensions of warning periods.
  • To assess conduct, grievance and dignity and mutual respect cases individually to decide whether to continue the case online, for example via Microsoft Teams. The collection of witness statements will continue, but UCU are concerned that formal disciplinary hearings conducted online may make it hard for a member to get their case across as clearly. Each case will be discussed with union reps, the views of the member will be taken into account (some may prefer to go ahead), and if the case is a result of a complaint from another staff member this will be taken into consideration too. We think most cases will be postponed.
  • To put appeals on hold (with the possible exception of appeals against dismissal, to be confirmed).

Carrying over annual leave

UCU University of Leeds Branch Posted on by

UCU reps asked for staff to be allowed to carry over more than the usual 5 days of annual leave into the next annual leave year if they would find it difficult to use their annual leave during the lockdown, to help us recover from this crisis period.

This has been refused and we are told we must still take our annual leave during the year to 30th September. If you had a holiday planned and you now want to cancel your leave because the holiday has been cancelled, and work from home instead, you should discuss this with your line manager in the usual way. If you are part of the ‘critical activity team’ needed on campus, it might be difficult for you to take time off and therefore it might be possible to carry more annual leave over to next year.