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Pensions – please let us know when you’ve voted

Posted on 1 December 2017 by Alan Smith22 January 2018

It would be great if you would let us know when you’ve voted in the pensions industrial action ballot by emailing ucu@leeds.ac.uk with the word ‘voted’ in the subject box. (We’re not asking what you voted.)

This will help us to remind colleagues who may have forgotten to vote, so we can deal with the obstacle of the Tory anti-strike law which says unions have to get a 50% turnout but forbids us from using electronic voting or having ballot boxes in the workplace because these would increase the turnout.

(We will try not to ask you again once you’ve either told us you’ve voted or that you don’t want a reminder.)

If you haven’t received your ballot paper by Monday 4 December, you can request a replacement by going to ucu.org.uk/ussballotrequest

For the latest updates on the pensions dispute see the national UCU website www.ucu.org.uk/uss

 

Posted in Campaigns, Dispute, Dispute advice, Pensions

National action on pensions: inaccuracies in management statement on USS

Posted on 30 November 2017 by Alan Smith30 November 2017

Yesterday, our university management posted an update on the USS Pension scheme, under “latest news” which has led to queries from members. The university management’s statement contains a wholly inaccurate claim that the USS pensions dispute is “not a national ballot” and goes on to claim the “University is the subject of a dispute which we have no power to resolve.”

In fact, save for one detail, UCU is following the same process as we always do in a national ballot – which is to serve individual ballot notices to each institution on whose behalf negotiations are being conducted.

The only difference in this ballot is that, as our first national ballot since the unfair, anti-trade union Trade Union Act passed in 2016, every ballot now has to pass a 50 per cent threshold before action can take place. UCU has therefore decided to count each ballot separately in order to maximise the opportunity for branches to take action and minimise the possibility that low turnout in one or two institutions would stop action elsewhere. Every USS branch is being balloted, and this is a national campaign.

Two Leeds UCU officers (Lesley and Vicky) are members of the UCU’s Higher Education Committee. They were both present at the meeting which voted decisively, and with unity, to move to the ballot in this national dispute. We absolutely assure you that the claims made by management to the contrary are erroneous.

Yesterday we wrote to you to suggest you write to the Vice Chancellor (vice-chancellor@leeds.ac.uk) to ask several questions – here they are again:

  • Under the UUK proposals can you tell me what my retirement income will be?
  • Under the UUK proposals will my pension benefits now be significantly worse than those in post-92 universities?
  • Will the University of Leeds please formally request evidence of the modelling that has been provided by Universities UK?
  • Will the VC take action to stand up for staff and for the difficulty we will face in attracting staff to work in a UK university without an adequate pension scheme?

Please note that these questions are important because, contrary to senior management’s assertions in the 29 November update, every University does indeed have power to affect the course of negotiations – we ask that our VC follows the example set by Warwick and Glasgow universities by standing up for our pensions.

Posted in Campaigns, Dispute, Pensions

Censure and Academic Boycott of University of Leeds

Posted on 29 November 2017 by editor114 December 2017

Leeds UCU is still in dispute with university management over our statutes. Management have refused:

  • to remove ‘some other substantial reason’ for dismissal
  • to reinstate a medically qualified chair for appeal panels for dismissal on health grounds
  • to reinstate an independent chair for other appeal panels

 

Management also intend to move all the pertinent procedures into Ordinances (which can be changed more easily) rather that Statutes, which are subject to government approval.

Consequently we have begun the process of Censure and Academic Boycott of the University of Leeds, as agreed at several Leeds UCU General Meetings and at UCU National Congress 2017. This is a serious step which we hope will encourage management to withdraw their proposed new statutes from Privy Council and reconsider their approach. Censure and Academic Boycott is a UCU procedure which happens in stages. The first stage of this was a letter of censure to the university, which will be sent today, Wednesday 29th November. The University of Leeds will be on a list of employers who are subject to censure as a result of a particularly damaging approach to an industrial relations issue. UCU publicises this list through appropriate media and to other academics.

The university management can respond by meeting UCU again for meaningful negotiations. But if they don’t, we need to move to the boycott stage, where academic and academic-related staff at other universities and institutions are asked not to cooperate with Leeds in various ways. Please read the full UCU policy on Censure and Academic Boycott (PDF, 148k), as agreed at the UCU National Congress 2010.

The boycott will be a gradual process and we will all decide together as a union what should be boycotted and when. The committee will consult members each time we believe it is time to increase the boycott. Below are the sorts of activities we might ask that UCU colleagues from other institutions boycott. The committee will propose starting with those which are straightforward but will have a significant effect on the university. Then, if things don’t improve, it’s envisaged the committee will come back to members and propose increasing the level of the boycott. We want to keep members fully involved throughout, and we’d welcome your views now on what activities to boycott at the initial stage.

  • Applying to become external examiners for taught courses
  • Speaking at seminars or guest lectures
  • Applying for jobs at Leeds
  • Recommending to students considering postgraduate study that they should choose a university that gives proper recognition to academic freedom
  • Peer reviewing Leeds research
  • Speaking at or organising academic or other conferences here
  • Accepting positions as visiting professors or researchers here
  • Writing for any academic journal which is edited at or produced at Leeds
  • Collaborating on new research projects

We would also very much welcome further suggestions from members for activities we could add to this list.

Staff working at Leeds will continue doing their normal academic and academic related activities within our own university – the boycott is for our colleagues elsewhere.

Based on feedback from members we will draw up a plan for stages of the boycott. Remember that university management can at any stage agree to meet UCU again for meaningful negotiations, and thus avoid further escalation of the boycott.

A detailed consultation will follow soon, but in the meantime please email your thoughts to ucu@leeds.ac.uk.

Note that we are also working towards renewing our ballot for further industrial action, and we will be consulting members further about appropriate forms of that industrial action.  General Meetings have suggested a marking boycott and a REF boycott, and we also welcome members’ suggestions on this.

Posted in Campaigns, Dispute, Dispute advice, Statutes

Christmas carolling 5th December

Posted on 28 November 2017 by editor15 December 2017

Leeds UCU will be making our views known about our statutes dispute and about pensions in a very festive way at lunchtime on Tuesday 5th December.  We’ll be singing Christmas carols – with slightly different lyrics – around campus, with a brass accompaniment. The ‘UCU choir’ is great fun, and you don’t need to be a good singer, just come along and enjoy yourself.  Festive costume (e.g. tinsel) entirely optional.

We’ll be assembling at 1pm in room G.03, Baines Wing for a quick practice before going off to sing our hearts out.

We’d love to have suitable lyrics for more Christmas carols – send your suggested wording to ucu@leeds.ac.uk

And how would you complete a Christmas card to management that starts “All I want for Christmas is…”?  Send us your thoughts!

Some festive decorations:

Posted in Campaigns, Dispute, Pensions, Statutes

Current ballot mandate expired, preparing for escalation and reballot

Posted on 21 November 2017 by Alan Smith21 November 2017

The ballot mandate in the Statutes dispute has expired (new anti-trade-union laws give ballots a 6-month shelf life) and we are now escalating to the next phase in the dispute.

As agreed at the recent all-members general meeting we will be moving forward with the national UCU censure of the University of Leeds, agreed at UCU’s national Congress. This will be followed by taking steps towards a gradual boycott of the institution, and we will be renewing the strike ballot (as required by law). As we build up to this, we will be consulting you on all these issues.

Please check your membership details are up to date by logging into My UCU (you’ll need to register if you haven’t used the new system yet) so we’re ready to go for both a local strike ballot and a national strike ballot over pensions.

So we are not currently working to contract, but we are very much still in dispute. We suggest you amend your email signature to:

Please note: I support UCU in the dispute with management over changes to Statutes, including the introduction of dismissal for “some other substantial reason” (SOSR) and the loss of medical and legal chairs in some procedures. Please sign the petition about this at speakout.web.ucu.org.uk/university-of-leeds-statutes-no-sackers-charter. Latest information from Leeds UCU at leedsucu.org.uk

Posted in Consultations and negotiations, Dispute, Dispute advice, Statutes

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Jeremy Toner

Posted on 20 January 2021 by Alan Smith20 January 2021

With great sadness I’m writing to inform you of the awful news that Jeremy Toner has died of cancer after a short illness. Jeremy was our first openly-gay local president, then our treasurer; he was one of the activists who transformed Leeds AUT/UCU into a branch that actively fought back against managerialism, marketisation, casualisation and injustice. Above all, Jeremy was a truly kind and considerate person, loved and respected by many and he will be greatly missed.

In sadness,

Ben Plumpton
Branch President
UCU University of Leeds Branch

We have opened this post for comments in case you wish to leave a message or memory. (There will be a delay before your comment appears.)

Posted in Branch | 13 Replies

Formal dispute lodged over Medicine and Biological Sciences potential redundancies

Posted on 18 January 2021 by Alan Smith18 January 2021

UCU has formally lodged a dispute with University of Leeds over potential redundancies in the Faculty of Biological Sciences and the School of Medicine.

Full text of the dispute letter:

Declaration of dispute

Professor Simone Buitendijk
Vice Chancellor
The University of Leeds
LS2 9JT

15th January 2021

Dear Professor Buitendijk

Re: Declaration of dispute – Risk of Potential Redundancies in the School of Medicine & Faculty of Biological Sciences

I wrote to you on 7th January registering a failure to agree on the following issue(s):

  • Failure to rule out the need for compulsory redundancies.
  • Failure to provide full financial transparency and disclosure regarding the need for financial cuts in the School of Medicine and Faculty of Biological Sciences and opportunities to consult about alternative strategies that could protect jobs.
  • Failure to provide information about roles/areas that may be in scope of redundancy and the proposals that are being considered for the future work and operation of the two areas.  

In order to resolve this failure to Agree, UCU are requesting the following immediate action:

  1. That the University commits to no compulsory redundancies
  2. That after the outcomes of the current VLS exercise are communicated no further action is taken by the University during the pandemic thereby allowing for full meaningful and transparent consultation on the finances within the two areas in scope and the University more generally.
  3. That there is full consultation and negotiation regarding any proposed changes to the two areas in scope.    

In that letter I referenced the OCG meeting scheduled for Monday 11th January requesting my attendance and asked that the necessary assurances be provided either before or at the meeting to prevent further escalation. I was not formally invited to the meeting by the University, though of course as you may know, I did attend following receipt of an invitation from UCU local officers. My attendance at the meeting caused quite a commotion with the University side resulting in 15 minutes of unnecessary discussion at the beginning of the meeting.  I hope this will not occur in future, given that the Terms of Reference of the Organisational Change Group clearly state that union Regional Officials may attend for items of significance.

The change process underway in the Medical School and Biological Sciences was the subject of discussion in the second part of the meeting and information was provided on the outcome of the VLS and an outline time line relating to next steps. Representatives from the University did attempt to placate the recognised trade unions by saying that full consultation and consideration will occur in the future but unfortunately there remains no commitment to no compulsory redundancies and no explicit offer in regards to sharing information relating to finances or plans related to the effect of 20 VLS applications which have been supported. 

We are still none the wiser as to the savings targets being considered or proposed, the particular staff groups that are in scope and to what extent the savings created by 20 voluntary leavers will provide for the ongoing job security of the remaining workforce. Given that leavers have been selected by business need and that some staff have been turned down it would seem to UCU that the recent VLS was a targeted scheme with particular roles in scope and to argue otherwise is nothing more than a smokescreen. This brings into question as to whether the process the University is following is lawful as prescribed under S188 of TULRCA. I understand that the recognised trade unions have repeatedly called for more information and transparency and to date this has not been provided and yet targeted staff reductions are going ahead. UCU do not accept that managers are not contemplating compulsory redundancies or have in train a plan for delivering savings. 

I am also mindful that the university has made no attempt to contact me directly regarding the failure to agree with a view to setting up a series of meetings with myself and local UCU officers to avoid escalation. This would certainly be my expectation in situations such as this.    

It is therefore with regret that I am writing to formally register a dispute with you on the issue(s) listed above.

UCU reserves its right to now progress this matter but the institution is aware of the action needed to resolve this issue and we remain open to meaningful negotiations.

This dispute will continue until such time as all the above issues, and any issues related to any potential future industrial action called for by the union in support of the dispute, have been resolved to UCU’s satisfaction.

Yours sincerely

Julie Kelley – Regional Official Yorkshire and Humberside

cc:  Ben Plumpton, Chloe Wallace, Tim Goodall – Leeds University UCU Branch Officers

PDF copy of original letter

More details about the dispute

Sign the petition to stop redundancies

Posted in Dispute information, Redundancy

Petition against redundancies in Biological Sciences and Medicine

Posted on 13 January 2021 by Alan Smith18 January 2021

Please sign and share this petition link with your contacts in Leeds and beyond. Anyone can sign – universities are for the whole community.

University of Leeds senior management are insisting on reducing staff to cut costs in the School of Medicine and the Faculty of Biological Sciences, and they refuse to rule out compulsory redundancies.

UCU reps have argued the widespread belief that the university’s opaque funding allocation model under-funds many STEM* subjects which are more expensive to research and teach, and called upon the senior management to be more open about the funding model and improve its approach, to properly fund all subjects instead of cutting jobs.

Update: UCU has sent a formal letter to the VC to register a dispute with the university. You can read the full text of the letter here.

More details

(*Science, technology, engineering and mathematics)

Posted in Redundancy

No to all job cuts at the university!

Posted on 13 January 2021 by Alan Smith13 January 2021
Email sent to branch members 11 January 2021

As you are probably aware, the university started a voluntary redundancy scheme in the Faculty of Biological Science and the School of Medicine last semester and the deadline for applications to the scheme has now passed.  For more on the history of this, see the leeds.ucu.org.uk article: http://www.leedsucu.org.uk/vls-in-fbs-and-medicine/   

Here is what has happened since we wrote that article: 

  • Our regional UCU officer wrote to the VC to ask that compulsory redundancies are ruled out 
  • The VC replied to say that she was unable to rule out compulsory redundancies  
  • Our regional UCU officer replied with a ‘failure to agree letter’ saying we will not accept compulsory redundancies and asking to pause the consideration of any further voluntary redundancies until we are out of the current COVID crisis and until we’ve been properly consulted with full financial information.  If an assurance cannot be given by the end of Monday, the regional officer will send a letter, entering into dispute with the university. 
  • We’re planning a press release to make public that the university is planning to get rid of staff in some of the areas that might be considered most essential at this time.   
  • We’ve also launched a petition – please sign and ask your colleagues at this and other universities to sign, plus alumni and anyone else with a connection to the university  
Stop redundancies at University of Leeds

While all this is happening, we’re also negotiating on our anti-casualisation claim and have made some progress in discussions with HR. See more detail on the claim  

here: http://www.leedsucu.org.uk/ucu-anti-casualisation-claim-submitted-to-university-of-leeds/ 

Across the university (for example via casework) and at every opportunity in our meetings with HR and senior management we’ve been fighting hard to persuade HR to renew as many fixed-term and fixed-funded contracts as possible and to provide us with more detailed information about which contracts are being considered for non-renewal and why.  We’ve made some progress as HR are now reviewing all fixed-term contracts longer than three years and, where there is no reasonable justification, transferring those staff on to permanent contracts.  We continue to push management at every opportunity that the university should not be ending anyone’s employment in the middle of a pandemic 

If you have been on a fixed-term contract for 3 years or more, contact your local HR officer to say you believe you should be made permanent, and ask the branch for a caseworker if there are any problems. 

Please do remember to sign the petition.  We’ll be in touch soon with any developments. 

Best wishes, 

Tim
UCU Branch Secretary, on behalf of UCU committee 

Posted in Redundancy

Supporting schoolteachers by reducing university workloads

Posted on 12 January 2021 by Alan Smith12 January 2021

The UCU branch committee sends our thanks and support to schoolteachers in the National Education Union whose refusal to work in dangerous conditions forced the government to move more quickly in moving most school teaching online. Their action has made us all more safe.

The government has left continuing confusion about who should be working and who should be able to send their children to school, and what should happen when people who shouldn’t send their children to school are required to work. As a result, school attendance has been much higher than during the first lockdown meaning that teachers are less safe and the curb on the spread of the virus will be less effective, placing all our communities at further risk.

It is vital that university staff with school-age children can play our part in keeping school attendance low. Therefore, the UCU committee has written to the vice-chancellor and spoken to senior HR managers about the need to reduce workloads and extend the availability of special leave for staff whose role is not critical for the health or wellbeing of students, staff or society. We have impressed upon HR that it is not enough to say, “Do what you can,” or “Work when you can.” We need clear reductions in workloads to off-set the amount of childcare staff members will need to provide in their circumstances, so that those of us with childcare responsibilities are still able to achieve and excel within appropriate workloads.

Senior HR managers have indicated they also think most staff shouldn’t be classed as critical workers for the purposes of being able to send their children to school, because of the community responsibility of reducing the spread of the virus, and are considering UCU’s advice on dealing with workloads.

However, we are deeply concerned that University HR have rejected our request for a blanket extension of special leave provision. They have stated that staff should take special leave as necessary within the extended limit of ten days and if they need more than ten days they should talk to their head of school or service or local HR team and individual circumstances will be considered.

UCU University of Leeds branch joins with other unions in urging everyone to support primary and secondary school staff by not sending children to school if at all possible. We understand that some roles are genuinely critical to the health and wellbeing of students, staff, or society, but wherever possible staff must be supported to care for children at home, without detriment, in order to reduce the spread of the virus. If you have problems with your line manager or head of school or service not reducing your workload to enable you to do that, without working all hours to compensate, contact the UCU branch officers by email ucu@leeds.ac.uk.

Posted in Covid19, Solidarity, Workload
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