Some of the information in this post is historical. For current information see local industrial action hardship fund At our General Meeting on 3 December we unanimously passed a motion revising the rules for our local Hardship Fund to allow … Read more
From the picket lines this week, two committee members offered polite responses to an editorial in the Gryphon newspaper that addressed the causes of the current industrial action. Dr Laura Loyola-Hernández offered a response covering the chief aspect of the … Read more
Members will have seen in last week’s all-staff communication the reminder that our USS pension contributions will be going up from 8% of Salary to 8.8% of salary, as from your pay slip at the end of April. We will … Read more
UCU University of Leeds international staff survey Please promote this link to international colleagues at University of Leeds, whether or not they have joined UCU yet. We’re delighted to announce the launch of our International Staff Survey. By international staff … Read more
You will have received an email recently from Jill Nimmo, forwarding a USS communication in which they offer a brief summary of the cost-sharing consultation with members that took place over the summer, and which was in effect eclipsed by … Read more
Our University was one of the institutions that wanted us to lose Defined Benefits altogether. UCU National Disputes Committee adopts a ‘No Detriment’ position USS letter proposes using an updated March 2018 valuation to supersede the March 2017 valuation Our … Read more
The latest development in the ongoing USS saga sees the revelation that USS themselves seem to have failed to correctly apply their own ’Test 1’, and that when this is corrected there is no deficit in the scheme as of … Read more
Yesterday, the long-awaited report from the Joint Expert Panel was released. You can read the executive summary here , and the full report here. The report very much validates many of the arguments that UCU and activists have been rehearsing … Read more
Members will have received communications recently from the University and from UCU about the USS’s consultation over proposed changes to our pension. The consultation is a requirement upon USS, and was originally deferred as a result of the outcome of … Read more
In April 2017, the USS posted a ‘deficit’ of around £5.1 billion. This in itself did not imply a need for change to the pension scheme. The ‘deficit’ is not an amount of missing money (in fact, the pension scheme … Read more