Leeds UCU at our General Meeting on 22nd January agreed to work with the Equality Trust to develop and run a survey of Leeds UCU members, to provide evidence supporting our negotiations with the university on pay gaps. See https://www.leedsucu.org.uk/members-make-dispute-decisions-at-extraordinary-general-meeting/ (motion 3). A working group is being set up for this, co-convened by Dima Barakat Chami (our branch Equality Officer) and Jane Holgate. If you would like to join the working group, please contact Jane Holgate (j.holgate@leeds.ac.uk).
Memorial for Nita Sanghera
Nita would have been UCU President from May, but sadly died on 16th January. She was a tireless and brilliant union activist, and supported us in Leeds many times (some photos at https://www.leedsucu.org.uk/nita-sanghera/). Nita’s family and friends would like to invite you to a memorial march and rally this Sunday, 9th February, in Birmingham. We’ll be taking our branch banner, and the branch will pay members’ travel expenses to attend. Assemble at Victoria Square, Birmingham at 1 pm, followed by a memorial rally at 2.30 pm at Aston Legacy Centre, 144 Potters Lane Aston, Birmingham, B6 4UU. Donations towards the cost of organising this event would be welcome – contact ucu@leeds.ac.uk for details. Please let ucu@leeds.ac.uk know if you’re thinking of attending so we can coordinate travel.
EU members and Brexit
Much solidarity from Leeds UCU to our EU members, who may be worried and concerned about their situation in the UK after 31st January. Your union knows what a big contribution you (and all migrant workers) make to this university, and you have our support and best wishes. If you need to find out more about pre-settled and settled status, Citizens Advice have a useful site at https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/immigration/staying-in-the-uk-after-brexit/staying-in-the-uk-after-brexit/ UCU can also provide specialist immigration employment advice, see https://www.ucu.org.uk/legal#immigration If you need support with a particular work-related problem, please contact ucu@leeds.ac.uk UCU will continue to campaign against all racism and the Hostile Environment.
External examining
You may have seen a letter to the Guardian from a group of professors explaining why they are resigning as external examiners and encouraging colleagues to join them in doing so, see
UCU have provided guidance for staff considering following suit as to how to do so within the terms of your external examiners contract: https://www.ucu.org.uk/externals
This is one of many areas where academic staff act essentially on the basis of goodwill to benefit the whole sector and such goodwill is being seriously eroded by employers’ responses to the current two disputes on #USS and #FourFights.
Open letter to research funders (reminder)
If you do research funded by research agencies such as ESRC, EPSRC, AHRC etc, please sign our Open Letter which explains the two current HE disputes and asks funders to take certain actions including putting pressure on the employers’ bodies and also extending their application and reporting deadlines in order to accommodate the time lost by researchers taking strike action and ASOS. Please sign this letter here http://docs.google.com/document/d/1GMGQLsSN1Xg-iVWYD11kc4dqW2nvsOC-e3XqajMm7qI/edit?usp=sharing including your name, position, funder and institution, following the layout of the examples included in the letter.
USS statutory consultation
You’ll have received an email on 24th January entitled “Important: Notice of statutory consultation in relation to the Universities Superannuation Scheme”. This is the result of a win negotiated by the UCU negotiating team. The main part of the USS scheme remains a Defined Benefit scheme, but above a certain salary threshold, contributions go into the Defined Contribution part of your pension. That threshold is currently £58,589.70, and was not going to increase beyond March this year. Were it to remain static, more and more members would gradually find themselves paying into the DC element as salaries gradually rise. UCU have negotiated that the threshold will rise for at least the next 5 years in line with inflation (CPI), which maintains the balance of defined contribution and defined benefit closer to how it is currently configured. Because this is effectively a change to the scheme, USS are obliged to go through a statutory consultation so that all USS members have an opportunity to comment on the change. This is a useful win, and your union recommends that you respond to the consultation by saying you support this change – email EmployerConsultation@uss.co.uk by Monday 23rd March.
UCU national elections
You may have already received or will shortly receive a big envelope of papers about voting for UCU National Executive Committee members, trustees, and the next Vice President (who will be from Further Education). Please do use your votes – these are hugely important roles and the successful candidates will make important decisions on behalf of the union. Please read the candidates’ statements carefully to make your decisions. Many of the candidates are sending further information to branches, and we will put such information on the Leeds UCU website for you to read. We are also looking into the possibility of a Leeds hustings. So don’t feel you need to decide immediately, but do make sure you get your votes in by noon on Wednesday 4th March. Perhaps put a reminder in your calendar to post your votes by Friday 28th Feb. From a Leeds perspective, note that:
- Dima Chami (our branch Equality Officer) is elected unopposed to one of the two new migrant member posts on the NEC.
- Ruth Holliday (Sociology) is standing for one of the NE Region seats.
For more information see https://www.ucu.org.uk/article/10339/UCU-trustee-national-officer-and-national-executive-committee-elections-in-2019-20-ballots
If your ballot papers haven’t arrived, or if you have lost them, you can get a replacement by filling in this form: https://www.ucu.org.uk/election-ballot-request
Talking to students about the strikes
If you have a student-facing role, we’d encourage you to let your students know that you will be striking, and the reasons. You should not notify management in advance that you will be striking, but it’s helpful to let your students know so that they know what to expect and are better able to support us.
We have put together some slides which you could use in lectures. Please personalise these if possible.
We have also posted a short blog on the Leeds UCU website to students, which thanks them for their support and hopefully helps to clear up some concerns.
If you have influence over how students are assessed, it would be helpful if you could push that assessments should be fair and should take into consideration the loss of teaching of specific topics due to strike action. And it would also be helpful if assessment deadlines could be moved so that students who don’t want to cross our picket lines would not suffer late penalties.
Further strikes announced
You’ll have seen from your email on Monday from the UCU general secretary Jo Grady that UCU have announced 14 more days strike action during February and March. Our negotiating team and elected Higher Education Committee think that, despite some real progress in the negotiations, the employers are holding back and are not taking the concerns of staff seriously enough. Leeds University UCU is therefore called to strike on these dates in pursuit of two legally distinct disputes: USS, and #FourFights (see: https://www.ucu.org.uk/article/10621/UCU-announces-14-strike-days-at-74-UK-universities-in-February-and-March )
The dates are:
- Week one – Thursday 20 & Friday 21 February
- Week two – Monday 24, Tuesday 25 & Wednesday 26 February
- Week three – Monday 2, Tuesday 3, Wednesday 4 & Thursday 5 March
- Week four – Monday 9, Tuesday 10, Wednesday 11, Thursday 12 & Friday 13 March
This is such a crucial moment for higher education in the UK, and every member is needed to make this action successful. Employers have moved a bit in negotiations as a result of our actions so far. We need them to move further, and to put decent, trustworthy offers on the table to resolve these disputes. We know some VCs are already shifting. We need to increase the pressure we exert – and this is where hard-hitting, escalating strike action comes in. UCU has campaigned relentlessly, lobbied, and carefully explained all these issues. That we have been forced to take industrial action to shake our employers awake pours shame upon them. More details on the two disputes below. Note also that the employers’ bodies have two weeks to come up with better offers before the strikes start, and there are deliberate pauses during the strike period for that purpose too.
To have everyone supporting the actions will make a huge difference to their effectiveness. Remember, the union has financial support if the strike deductions cause you hardship.
Together we are strong, and together we can win.
General Secretary Facebook Live Q&A: Thursday 13th February 1- 2pm. If you have questions about the disputes or negotiations, you can ask Jo Grady direct and listen to the questions from others. The live stream will be available on the UCU Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/ucu.campaigns/ and it will continue to be available for viewing after the session has ended. You don’t need a Facebook account to view it. Questions can be submitted via Facebook or to this email address, either in advance or during the session.
Meetings
The union’s Higher Education Committee (HEC) has called a series of branch briefings across the UK, starting next week, and Leeds will be sending delegates who will report back to the branch. We’re organising local meetings before and after this:
- Action Group: Tuesday,
11th February, 1-2 pm, Baines Wing G03
Get involved with planning for the strikes. There will also be further placard-making sessions and chances to get creative! - Members meeting Tuesday
18th February 12 noon – 1 pm, Roger Stevens LT16
Not a formal meeting with motions but a chance to discuss the disputes. There will be updates from the branch briefings and from national negotiations, a report from the Higher Education Committee meeting (14th February), and plenty of opportunity for discussion. - Branch General Meeting Monday 2nd
March 12 noon – 1 pm (previously announced, but venue TBC
as it’s a strike day)
To discuss the progress of the disputes, motions to UCU Congress, and any other issues members wish to raise (see https://www.leedsucu.org.uk/general-meetings-2019-2020/ for our year’s schedule of general meetings)
Sign up for picket duty here: https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=x7sla-g7S0KySQb82NdiaNICVYU2x7RDvUK_2a_SumpUNlgzWFQ5N1BGTTRWUkZMTU1HV0lXTkdFMi4u
(you don’t have to do every day – it’s important we look after ourselves! – but it would be great to have every member doing some picketing).
Also, please start thinking about any sessions you might like to offer as part of our Teach Outs providing alternative learning for students.
Why we are striking – the two disputes
- #FourFights
Our negotiators have pushed UCEA from the language of ‘recommendation’ into ‘expectation’, which represents a foundation for the development of UK wide bargaining on workload, casualisation and equality. This is significant and new, but UCEA’s offer needs to go further, and it needs to include agreement on a mechanism of implementation or oversight. We also need to see movement on pay. See the detailed statement from the UCU negotiating team about the UCEA offer at https://ucufourfights.com/2020/01/29/27janofferresponse/
- #USS
UCU is in twin track talks to address both the current dispute with Universities UK over the USS pension scheme, which centres on the hike in contribution rates we pay, and to address the underlying issues (focusing largely on valuation methodology and governance) which have resulted in multiple disputes over this scheme. To resolve the dispute, we need employers to recognise that the recent hike of member contributions to 9.6%, with a likelihood that they will go up to 11% from 2021, is itself a huge risk to the scheme as lower paid and insecurely employed members increasingly opt out altogether. See the UCU counter offer at https://www.ucu.org.uk/article/10231/UCU-counter-proposals?list=9041
We hope that ongoing discussions following the second report of the Joint Expert Panel will make good progress on future valuation and governance, but our immediate concern in this dispute is to reverse the increases to our contribution rates.
One action you can take right now! ASOS (Action Short of Strike)
We’ve made some great local posters to make our ASOS more visible – your local UCU rep will have lots, so if you haven’t already got one, ask your rep for one and put it on your door/by your desk. Also don’t forget we’re collecting examples of activities that have not taken place and requests for voluntary work which have been refused as a result of members doing ASOS. Please fill the short form here
recording each activity as a separate incident. This is completely anonymous and we will use the information to demonstrate how much the University relies on goodwill, voluntary labour and overtime. Remember our local ASOS guidance is here: https://www.leedsucu.org.uk/asos-guidance-from-leeds-ucu/ and the national FAQ here: http://www.ucu.org.uk/he-action-faqs
Over to the employers
Senior leaders – including our own – must now mandate their representative bodies to make meaningful offers to resolve both disputes, in terms that we can trust will hold. Armed with the most impressive ballot results UCU has ever achieved, with members in 74 universities (after some re-ballots) able to strike across two disputes, now is the moment to stand up for higher education.
Strike deductions
Don’t forget! If strike deductions
from November/December are causing you hardship, you can apply to the national
Fighting Fund and our local Hardship Fund – details of how to apply are at https://www.leedsucu.org.uk/hardship-applications-and-surgeries/
Let us know if there are any problems with your pay deduction – we’ve heard of
various errors happening at other universities.
In solidarity,
Ben
Ben Plumpton
Branch President
Pronouns: She/Her/Hers
Who your reps are and where we still need reps
We may well have another busy period coming up so I want to make sure you all know who your UCU reps are and where there are gaps where we still need reps. The current list is at leedsucu/departmental-representatives.
For each area the committee would like to have a department rep, an anti-casualisation rep (intended to be someone on an insecure contract), a postgraduates rep, a workloads rep and a health and safety rep.
If you’d like to stand as a rep please ask two colleagues in your area who are UCU members to email ucu@leeds.ac.uk nominating you for the role. We’re going to give a deadline of 12pm Monday 17 February (the deadline is in case more than one person wants to do the role, so we’re not doing it on a first-come basis like a race).