Annual General Meeting

Thursday 24 May 2018

3.45pm – 5pm

(Tea and cake from 3.30pm)

Workshop Theatre

Agenda

1. Minutes of AGM 24 May 2017
2. Minutes of recent general meetings
3. Matters arising
4. President’s report
5. Appointment of auditors for 2018-2019
6. Appointment of tellers
7. Election of committee for 2018-2019 academic year
   • President
   • Vice-president
   • Treasurer
   • Honorary secretary
   • Membership officer
   • Equality officer
   • Campaigns officer
   • Health and safety officer
   • Anti-casualisation officer
   • Ordinary committee members (14 to elect)
8. Treasurer’s report
   Including proposal to change local subscription rates, see note below
9. Health and safety officer’s report
10. Membership officer’s report
11. Motions (see appendix)
    • Motion 1. Gaza protest and Israeli response. Proposed by James Dickins.
    • Motion 2. Rule change – department reps. Proposed by Alaric Hall
12. Any other business

Motions received

Motion 1. Gaza Protest and the Israeli Response. Emergency motion for UCU congress, proposed by James Dickins

Congress registers

• the Gaza civilians recently murdered by IDF snipers, and use of dum-dum bullets to maximise trauma;
• renewed Israeli bombing, damaging infrastructure and killing more civilians.
• Congress believes:
• Israeli policy is to render life unliveable in Gaza and the West Bank, enabling further colonisation by Israeli settlers;
• the barbarous use of military might, forced expulsion, systematic constitutional discrimination inside Israel, fully attested use of torture against prisoners, abrogation of Palestinian human rights, and illegal settlement of Palestinian land, render Israel an inappropriate partner for any British Government or British educational institution.

Congress affirms that this criticism of Israel is motivated neither by hatred of Jews, nor of Jewish Israelis.

Congress instructs the General Secretary to:

• write urging the British Government to cease arms sales and military/intelligence cooperation with Israel, review of all trading arrangements and exchanges, and to withdraw the UK Ambassador;
• issue a press release on this question immediately; and
• notify members of this policy.

Motion 2. Rule change motion – department reps, requires a two-thirds majority vote; proposed by Alaric Hall

The meeting notes:

• 29 of our proposed rules (‘Departmental Reps’) says that ‘Each School/Unit/Service is requested to elect a departmental representative.’
• Leeds UCU has since found that it would be valuable for departments also to have representatives for casualised, postgraduate, and international staff.

The meeting moves:

• To amend ‘Each School/Unit/Service is requested to elect a departmental representative’ to ‘Each School/Unit/Service is requested to elect a departmental representative, and other representatives as needed by the Committee for the satisfactory representation of the membership (such as representatives for casualised, postgraduate, and international staff)’.

Proposal to amend local subscription rates

The Treasurer has drawn up proposals to change the subscription rates and three options will be put to the AGM next Thursday.

This follows a request made at the last AGM for the Treasurer to bring back proposals for a more gradual local subscription rate with the aim of reducing the cost of UCU subscriptions to lower paid members without causing a deficit by reducing the overall income.

Nigel’s proposal is in the Treasurer’s report to the annual general meeting which has been emailed to all members. Please read the full report – this is just a quick unofficial summary.

(These are proposals for the local subscription rate, which is in addition to the national subscription.)