May Day strike fundraiser – The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists

UCU University of Leeds Branch Posted on by

1 May Day Strike fundraiser 7pm Holbeck Working Men’s club
Leeds TUC showing of Ragged Trousered Philanthropists and buffet (suitable for children 11+)

A one-man professional theatre production of The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, a book that has changed many perspectives and lives. This is a social evening with a buffet to raise money and solidarity for workers taking industrial action across Leeds.
Tickets: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-ragged-trousered-philanthropist-leeds-tuc-may-day-event-buffet-tickets-520795562547

Leeds TUC may day social evening The ragged trousered philanthropists "tremendous" the times- "highly entertaining" whatsonstage A one man magic show by Neil Gore based on the novel by Robert Tressell 'A company making a name for delivering politically committed theatre - the observer Leeds TUC may day event Monday, 1st May, 7pm - Holbeck Working Mens Club. A great night of solidarity and raising money for strikers. Buffet included. . Tickets £10 waged, £5 unwaged Buy them on eventbrite. Townsend theatre productions in association with FBU, HT, Unite, lottery funded Arts council England

29 April International Workers’ Day (May Day) Leeds TUC march and rally 11.30am

UCU University of Leeds Branch Posted on by

International Workers’ Day commemorates the many struggles and celebrates the gains of the labour movement for workers’ rights. Join trade unionists and community groups from across Leeds on Saturday 29 April for a (fairly short) march through Leeds and to come together at the rally.

Assemble outside Leeds Art Gallery at 11.30am. UCU will be represented in speeches alongside other unions and local MP Richard Burgon.

Friday 28 April Leeds Workers Memorial Day events

UCU University of Leeds Branch Posted on by
28 April Workers' Memorial Day. Unions Make Work Safe. Remember the deal, fight for the living. TUC changing the world for good. Image of three workers, one in a medical face mask one in a firefighter's helmet

International Workers Memorial Day commemorates those who died or were injured through work, bringing us together to remember the dead and fight for the living. There are two events in Leeds on Friday, designed so that those who are able to do so can attend the city-wide commemoration and make their way back to campus for the University of Leeds ceremony.

11.45 am Leeds TUC ceremony: Assemble at the Workers memorial (outside Leeds Art Gallery) from 11.45am to observe a minute’s silence at 12 noon followed by some short speeches from trade union representatives, the Leader of Leeds City Council, Richard Burgon MP, and the laying of wreaths. The Unite Brass Band will perform which is always moving. Leeds UCU will lay a wreath at this ceremony. See: Leeds Workers Memorial Day Event | Megaphone UK

1.15pm Ceremony at University of Leeds: All staff are invited to attend a brief ceremony for Workers’ Memorial Day, held outside LUU. Students, members from local communities, members of staff, and their trade union representatives will gather by the University of Leeds Student Union to remember all workers who lost their lives to workplace illness or injury, and to recommit ourselves to keep our workplace safe. There will be short speeches from Hilary Benn MP, Tracy Brabin Mayor of West Yorkshire, and the University of Leeds’ Director of Health and Safety Services. Following these addresses, weather permitting, attendees will make their way to St Georges’ Fields to lay wreaths at the foot of the Workers’ Memorial Tree.

Reporting strike action via ESS

UCU University of Leeds Branch Posted on by

A reminder that the branch position, decided in a general meeting, is that we should not cooperate with the strike reporting system on ESS (Employee Self Service) whilst the university continues to threaten to deduct additional pay for refusal to replace lost learning.

You may have seen over Easter that management at Queen Mary have withdrawn their threat and I have written to the vice chancellor, attaching the petition that many of you signed, to ask again for the University of Leeds to do likewise. I will keep you  posted.

In the meantime, please remember that whilst we are asking you to not use ESS, you should reply truthfully if asked whether you took strike action. 

This post is from an email to UCU branch members from branch president Chloe Wallace, sent 19 April 2023

Marking and assessment boycott

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You will no doubt have seen that head office have notified a marking and assessment boycott to start tomorrow, 20th April. Please watch out for national communications on this but I expect that it will go ahead. We are planning an informal branch meeting to discuss this, hopefully next week, and will be repeating our daily Solidaritea support meetings starting at the resumption of the semester in May – more details to follow. In the meantime, please read the very comprehensive UCU marking and assessment boycott frequently asked questions.  

We have not yet seen a specific announcement from the university about pay deductions for participation in the marking and assessment boycott. However, the university’s original threat includes a threat to deduct pay for not returning assessment marks in a timely fashion. This, combined with announcements up and down the country of universities threatening punitive pay deductions, suggests that our employer will continue to take an intimidatory and threatening position.

The fight against punitive deductions for participating in the marking and assessment boycott will be a national one for the whole union, including us, to fight. 

I can also confirm that the local hardship fund will be available for staff participating in the boycott, including any hourly paid staff in respect of marking accepted before the start of the boycott (20 April). The national fund is also available although last year its applicability to hourly paid markers was vague and we are therefore prepared to pay the entirety of wages lost to hourly paid staff from the local fund. For salaried staff the national fund will pay up to 5 days lost wages for participation in action short of a strike.

If marking and assessment are not part of your job role we will be fundraising to support staff – please consider donating to support this powerful action and our fight for decent pay and conditions.

This post is from an email to UCU branch members from branch president Chloe Wallace, sent 19 April 2023

Closure of the Ziff building to students

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Some of you may have heard about plans to close the Ziff building to students without appointments – a radical change given the building was designed with students in mind and has accessibility features not present in many other campus buildings.

This impacts many services, but perhaps particularly the Lifelong Learning Centre, for whom limiting student access to the building represents a significant and unwelcome shift in the the way they operate.

The plans were initially announced in mid/late March with no consultation with staff or students and have caused huge distress.

The campus unions protested these plans vociferously and have had multiple meetings with decision makers. As a consequence we understand plans are being delayed, but have not been withdrawn.

It is vital that the university understands the disruption to effective, inclusive and compassionate ways of working caused by these plans and listens to and acts on concerns raised by staff. Our committee stands in full solidarity with staff and students who have been badly affected and will continue to support and defend them. 

This post is from an email to UCU branch members from branch president Chloe Wallace, sent 19 April 2023

Fixed term contracts – 2+ years stage

UCU University of Leeds Branch Posted on by

Staff with (a) more than 2 years continuous service and (b) more than 6 months remaining on fixed term or fixed funded contracts should be contacted shortly (we are told this week) by HR with the offer of an ongoing contract.

The policies and procedures underlying this have not yet been agreed and UCU have concerns with the proposals on the table, which do not seem to offer much improvement in terms of job security. Consultation is ongoing and we hope that things will improve.

If you receive such an offer and would like advice please contact ucu@leeds.ac.uk and we will do our best to help. If you have fewer than 6 months remaining we expect you to be offered additional support in finding a  new role – please contact us again for advice. 

This post is from an email to UCU branch members from branch president Chloe Wallace, sent 19 April 2023

UCU socials and new starter activities

UCU University of Leeds Branch Posted on by

Email sent to branch members 17 April 2023

We’re writing to you as Membership Officers about new events we will be running to help to support developing interconnections and relations within the branch.

  1. We will be holding a UCU social this Friday on 21stApril, 5pm-7pm, in The Library pub on the Hyde Park corner of campus.

We will then be running these every third Friday of the month, with the exception of August and January. Please put these dates in your diaries. This will just be simply an informal get together with other union members.

  1. We will also run a lunchtime, alcohol free social. We are currently looking into venues for this and will let you know. We would welcome suggestions for where we would not need to book for a specific number / would be able to bring our own food (for example staff rooms located centrally on campus). Please do get in touch if you have any ideas and we will be in touch with further information about this soon.
  1. We will be starting monthly ‘New starters: introduction to UCU’ coffee meetings. These will be online, the first Thursday of every month. The first is 12pm 4th May. We will circulate the link to this when we contact new starters each month to let them know, but if you have a *new starter* (they do not need to be members), in your department or service please encourage them to come along. The idea is that we will do a short introduction into what the union does and how it works and will answer any questions people have. 

We hope that these sound like good developments and we really look forward to seeing you at the socials soon.

Best,

Kate and Xanthe

General meeting, AGM, committee elections, department by-elections

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From email sent by the branch administrator/organiser on 4 April 2023

General meeting

The next ordinary general meeting is Thursday 27 April, 12.45pm – 2pm.

The deadline for motions is 12pm Tuesday 18 April.

If you want the branch to propose an amendment to another branch’s motion to UCU Congress 2023, this is the meeting to propose that to. You can see the motions that have been put on the UCU Congress 2023 agenda in the congress business committee’s first report at https://www.ucu.org.uk/Congress2023

Note this meeting is after the UCU special higher education sector conference about the disputes.

Annual general meeting (AGM)

The AGM is Thursday 18 May 3.45pm – 5pm.

The deadline for motions to the AGM (which can include rule change motions) is 12pm Tuesday 2 May.

Committee elections

The annual committee (including branch officer) elections happen at or shortly after the AGM. (Uncontested posts are declared elected at the AGM, for contested posts a ballot of all members will be arranged after the AGM).

The deadline for nominations to committee is the day before the AGM (so, Wednesday 17 May). 

Here’s information about the different roles on committee and about how to nominate colleagues: standing for election to the UCU committee

When making a nomination, or thinking of standing, it’s useful to consider the importance that the committee represents the whole membership and no one group is over-represented to the accidental exclusion of others, as happens some years (but not every year) with the over-representation of white and/or male UCU members.

Every branch officer and committee position is elected every year at or shortly after the AGM, and the term of office is the academic year (1 September to 31 August). The only positions not up for election at the AGM are the immediate past president (which Chloe Wallace will become on 1 September) and any members elected to UCU’s national executive committee who are in this branch.

Department rep by-elections

This summer is not an all-out election for department reps (who serve a two year term (unless they are elected in a by-election part way through it), but there will automatically by a by-election to fill any vacancies. The deadline for nominations for those by-elections is 12pm Thursday 8 June (a couple of weeks after the AGM). I appreciate it is a bit early to remind you about this but it probably makes sense to think about it alongside thinking about who you want to nominate to be on the committee.

You can find out more about the department rep roles at choosing your UCU department representatives

I would strongly encourage all UCU members to think about which of your colleagues might be good UCU reps, either on the branch committee or for your department (including UCU department postgraduate reps, anti-casualisation reps, equality reps, workload reps and health and safety reps). In doing so I’d encourage you to challenge any stereotype you have of what union reps are like, be conscious that white and male union members are more likely to put themselves forward, and bear in mind that while someone who is more vocal at raising problems might be a good rep, it might also be that they are already in a relatively more privileged situation so feel more able to complain without consequence. In my view a good union rep will often be someone that colleagues have confidence in, whose judgement they trust, and who is a good listener.

Here’s a list of the scheduled general meetings for the academic year

Here’s an unofficial guide to how to turn your ideas into collective branch policy (including a link to the rules) https://www.leedsucu.org.uk/making-ucu-branch-general-meetings-work-better/

Fixed term contracts

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You may be aware of this communication from university management on the progress on fixed term contracts. While we welcome the advancement that has been made by the university management on this front, we would like to note several points:

  • The aim of the policy as communicated to the trade unions is to reduce the number of staff on fixed term contracts by 50%. While this is significant, it should be noted that it doesn’t cover all staff on fixed term contracts. A communication was sent to staff on fixed term contracts yesterday, and here is the link to FAQs that better explain some of the key policy elements developed by the university management team.
  • While it is true that the campus trade unions have been consulted, we feel there is still significant work to be done by the university. Our UCU branch committee is working with our local anti-casualisation working group, and with the UCU bargaining and negotiation team, to provide comprehensive feedback on the policy draft that has been shared with us so far. We note that significant concerns remain for negotiation and discussion.

We do hope that the university management will take our concerns seriously and continue working with us towards reducing the use of casualized contracts at the University of Leeds. If you have any questions, you can get in touch with us (ucu@leeds.ac.uk) or you can get involved in the anti-casualization working group (get in touch with branch anti-casualisation officer Marina Baldissera Pacchetti)

This post is from an email sent to members by branch president Chloe Wallace on Thursday 30 March 2023