Anti-casualisation

Leeds UCU is working hard to end casualised contracts in UK Higher Education. We think everyone at Leeds and other institutions should have a secure job, and that it is unacceptable that people live without knowing if they will be able to pay their rent or not due to precarious working conditions. Through our Anti-casualisation roadshow, Ignition (October 2018), the subsequent Anti-casualisation claim (January 2019) and our broader campaigns for fair pay we have highlighted the challenges faced by precariously employed staff and research students on teaching contracts and demanded the university pay attention.

To keep in touch with anti-casualisation news more broadly, follow Leeds Anticasualisation news @casualsleeds and nationally @UCUAnti_Cas.  (The hashtag #zinesagainstprecarity may also be of interest as contains some great creative critiques of the current state of UK HE.)

The national UCU news on Anti-casualisation can be found here: https://www.ucu.org.uk/anticasnews

We submitted our anti-casualisation claim to the University of Leeds in January 2019. Full details at: leedsucu.org.uk/ucu-anti-casualisation-claim-submitted-to-university-of-leeds

See below for present information and links concerning anti-casualisation.


This page was last updated on 22 February 2021

LeedsUCU podcast: update on anti-casualisation work

UCU University of Leeds Branch Posted on by

LeedsUCU podcast Year 2 episode 2: Update on anti-casualisation work

Today’s episode, recorded 6 November 2024, is an update on the UCU branch’s anti-causalisation work.

With Sandy James, Rachel Walls and Alan Smith.

If you prefer your union branch news direct to your ears, search for LeedsUCU wherever you get your podcasts, and subscribe so you get notified about new episodes. 

See all the episodes and transcripts at https://www.leedsucu.org.uk/about-us/podcast/

To join UCU go to ⁠https://www.ucu.org.uk/join

Direct links to the LeedsUCU podcast 

Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/2Ht1Iks9WPR6qbmGXXOXfS

Amazon Podcasts https://music.amazon.co.uk/podcasts/1f16de89-30ec-444a-83ac-54bcbe0bcac6/leedsucu-podcast

Pocket Casts https://pca.st/pacoaeqd

Also available on Apple Podcasts

Transcript

Rachel

Welcome to the LeedsUCU podcast for members of the University of Leeds branch of the University and College Union. I’m Rachel Walls, one of your podcast hosts. I’m also a UCU department rep for Lifelong Learning Centre, branch committee member and saxophone or clarinet player in our occasional picket line band Orchestrike!

Alan

And I’m Alan Smith, co-host for this podcast, and the branch’s administrator and organiser. We thought it would be useful for members of the branch to have an alternative channel for getting your local news because reading long emails or website posts is not everyone’s first choice.

Rachel

So we’re here to be a friendly voice from the UCU University of Leeds branch to keep you in better touch with what is going on, such as what the elected officers are working on and what opportunities there are for you to get involved in UCU discussions, socialising, activism and decision making.

[Brief music]

Rachel

Hi everyone and we’re joined by Sandy James today, branch anti-casualisation officer, and he’s going to give us some insights into the work the branch has been doing in this. area recently. Would you be able to give us a bit of an overview of what LeedsUCU has done around anti-casualisation over the last few years?

Sandy

Yeah. Thanks for having me and really good to be able to talk to members like this. So the last few years in anti-casualisation at Leeds UCU have been kind of dominated by this thing called Fairer Futures For All. Which is where the university said that within certain conditions, lots of people who were on fixed term contracts would be made ongoing. And there were some really sort of low hanging fruit there and people who were core funded by the university and things like support roles – admissions would be an example – where they should probably never have been fixed term and it was sort of a no brainer and it just made everyone’s lives easier. At the other end of the spectrum, for people on, for example, research contracts who are very often fixed term on the basis of external funding there has still been an improvement there in in terms of the support available to people in terms of the user experience, if you like, of the kind of end of a research project, there has been an improvement and I would say that that continues as everyone throughout the system understands the new process properly. I should say we do still have people on fixed term contracts and that is still an issue and there are particular areas, for example, sessional teaching, people supervising dissertation projects, and so there is ongoing work there as well. We do also still have on our radar work to support postgraduate researchers who teach, and looking at the kinds of employment contracts that are used for those people, and also looking at other forms of hourly paid work within the university.

Alan

So can I just say that Fairer Future For All stuff, that didn’t come out of nowhere, did it, that came from UCU was in dispute with the university over among other things, anti-casualisation, and the university suddenly announced “Fairer Future For All!”.

Sandy

Yeah. So the context around that was this was in the summer of 2022. So all of this has been a little while in the works and we were in dispute nationally including over the four fights – casualization, workload, equalities and pay – and we actually had a marking and assessment boycott in the University of Leeds, which is considered to be one of our strongest forms of industrial action, and, to end that locally, management made an agreement to do a piece of work on this and I would say Fairer Futures For All is certainly the thing that has delivered a part of that promise. Now there are other things within that agreement that, as I’ve said, are still ongoing, hourly paid, PGR, for example, that also delivered the pay and grading review, which I imagine we’ve talked about elsewhere in the podcast.

Rachel

Yeah, we have, yeah. And what has been your role in other officers’ roles since, like during, the Fairer Futures For All roll-out, if we can call it that?

Sandy

Yeah. So it’s been it’s been really important to have people who have experience. I’m on the casualization spectrum but at the least casualized end of it these days, but I have been through the whole development and it’s very important to have people feeding into me. So I do a lot of casework supporting other people going through risk of redundancy, for example, but being, I would say, being the tester, so the person who says OK, well, if you tell managers they can do that, then they’re going to go and do this, and actually if you don’t clarify that bit, that leaves it open for people to do this, and really just giving that lived experience to the HR officers who don’t operate within that, not just on behalf of myself, but on behalf of all members. So collating that experience from members and then presenting it to management, as anyone does for their bargaining unit.

Alan

So the new policies that are in place now are they agreed policies that have come out of the negotiations or not? Where are we with that?

Sandy

So the policies are in the process of being agreed. So partly, that is because we are still kind of ironing out some of these things that aren’t clear and where we found differing practise across the university, differing interpretations of the way that these policies are written. And also the nature of some of these policies is such that we do ask region for support, so UCU Yorkshire region are, you know, looking at these policies as they develop and supporting us with that negotiation process.

Alan

So the policies have improved, but we’re not quite at that agreement point?

Sandy

I would say so. Yeah. And that’s it’s sort of separate to the fact that conditions have improved for some people, but that there are still issues as well. So there’s kind of two sides to it.

Alan

So if a member’s coming towards the end of their fixed term contract – well, I wouldn’t say near the end – if you’ve got, I don’t know, a year to go, six months to go, what’s the best point at which to get in touch? What should members do if they’re in that situation?

Sandy

In my experience, most people start to think about where their next job is coming from about a year before the end of their current activity. At about 6 months they will receive an e-mail from HR which says: we think you’re at risk of redundancy, we’ve asked a university panel to approve that and we’d like you to come into a meeting with your line manager and HR. And at that point, understandably, people get quite scared because that’s quite a serious communication to receive and so I would advise people, certainly before the six month process to reach out to the branch ucu@leeds.co.uk.

Alan

ucu@leeds.ac.uk.

Sandy

And request a caseworker. And we have very experienced caseworkers in this area who understand the policy and the procedure through and through and will support you through that process. It’s a very common thing. Lots of people are doing it and we’re here to help.

Alan

So when they’ve contacted the case worker, and the case worker is going to try and support them through what this new process is, how’s this new process work and how’s it different from what there was before, the – what’s the policy? – employment security for staff on fixed term contracts?

Sandy

The procedure to support employment security, it’s a very long name. That no longer exists, but much of what happens is the same. So there’s a meeting six months before the end of contract where the individual is told that they are at risk of redundancy and they’re introduced to the package of support that the university offers to try and retain that person and that mostly relies on the redeployment process, so the notion that internal candidates are given a bit of an advantage in application for posts before they’re advertised externally. Then if we get to three months before end of activity and there’s still no new position, then that person is put to the panel again. That’s called the stage 2 redundancy panel, and that’s the point at which the panel confirms that that person can be made redundant and a redundancy issued notice is issued and now for most people who are grade 7 or below, their notice period will be 3 months. So that’s why the panel happens at that time because people have to be given formal notice. That doesn’t mean that the story’s over. Redeployment, external application for funding, etc. can all continue right up until the last day of employment, and a caseworker would be available to support people through that. I just want to say one quick clarification as well. I’m talking about end of activity, here. One of the sort of fundamental movements that we have succeeded in at the university is to stop talking about the end of external fixed funding as the end of employment, because whilst the activity you’re funded on might be ending, that does not mean that we don’t need, for example, post-doctoral research fellows at the university anymore. It’s not redundancy in the usual sense of a role being made redundant. It is the end of an activity which is funded.

Rachel

Hmm, OK. And should the university be leaving it to when the individual’s at risk of redundancy, or should they be planning ahead to avoid this?

Sandy

In an ideal case, yes, we would have some sort of notion of how to avoid this ahead of time and there is a process which has been introduced for that which is called workforce planning and it’s important to distinguish this from the process by which the schools within the university manage their teaching workload because it’s not the same as that, workforce planning simply says: we have a role coming up and we have some people who whose current activity is ending, and here are their skills profiles, and oh look, one of them matches this role, we can give them the role. It retains people, it supports career progression and it avoids a lot of work which would be required for recruitment. I would say it’s not in very widespread use. Some areas of the university are doing it quite well. Some areas I’m not convinced they’ve heard of it.

Alan

But this is new for them, isn’t it? I think this is new from this process. And so is the idea that managers are supposed to be actively focusing on creating that stability in the workforce.

Sandy

Heads of school, heads of service are being asked to be proactive. Yeah. So it’s a little bit above line manager for a lot of people, but then actually, those people – heads of school – certainly do line manage a lot of people. So it’s, yeah, there is a proactive process and I would say it is growing, more people are taking it up and it is being used and part of that is about is about having case studies where we say this person was retained and it was great, they were the right person for that role.

Rachel

Yeah. That makes sense to keep the talent and the skills and the developed people that we have. So it’s good that there is more movement towards that. Is this likely to – the whole fixed term contracts and casualisation – how does this affect people’s careers progression?

Sandy

Yeah, it has a really profound effect. The notion of secure employment supporting you to develop in your career. Whereas, for example, if you’re running from six month contract to six month contract and you’re constantly applying for extensions, you never have the time to develop your skill set and reach that next level. And it also leads to the sense of precarity of individuals not feeling safe in their employment and that adds, alongside workload issues that we all have, to a poor mental health. So security is really important to support people’s well-being, but also their career progression. And there’s a few things that I think it’s really important for members to be aware of. And without going too much into the arcane history of how this came about, the local implementation framework for the national pay spine. So that’s the agreement where UCU and the University of Leeds sat down and worked out, OK, we are nationally required to adhere to this pay spine, how are we going to do that locally? – in that document it says no one, regardless of role, will get stuck at the top of grade 7. That is an agreement between the university and the union, and it is poorly adhered to. So one thing I as anti-casualisation officer, I would really encourage members to reach out again to the union, ucu@leeds.ac.uk and ask for support with career progression as well as with retention and risk of redundancy because we can support you with case studies of people who’ve successfully applied for promotion, looking at if you’re not ready for promotion, if you haven’t met the criteria, why is that? What support should you have had and how can we push for that? And so that’s one thing I wanted to say. Hopefully all of this will get better without tonnes and tonnes of work from us because there is a big project underway across the university about career pathways and so we’re hearing the Explore phase of that, where they look at what practises and what the issues are, is coming to an end. We should be brought an update about that soon and we can start to contribute again into the development phase of: how might we change that? what will be the plan for the future? So that’s a big ongoing project that we’re very aware of. It’s affecting lots of other things at the university and that I think it’s really important for members to know that that work is being done.

Rachel

Good to know. So, moving on to our next section of the podcast. We just like to give members a bit of a heads-up on upcoming events and I think there’s just one today. Do you want to tell us a little bit about the next meeting in our calendar?

Sandy

Yeah. So we have a meeting which is open to all of our membership, on the meeting itself will be on the 3rd of December, Tuesday the 3rd. And as usual, the meeting will run from 12:45 till 2:00 PM. And this is an opportunity for our branch to come together to decide branch policy and to task the branch, the committee and the officers with behaving in a particular way, with working on a particular issue, whatever it is that the membership wants. That’s our democratic decision-making body and there’s a deadline to submit motions to that which is at 12:00 PM on Tuesday the 26th of November. So get your motions written, get them in by then.

Rachel

Yeah. Still a couple of weeks to have a think in case there’s anything you want to submit.

Alan

Yeah. And if you’ve got an idea for something that the union should be doing, but you’ve no idea how to write a motion, I think, you know, talk to your department rep or if you haven’t got a department rep e-mail, ucu@leeds.ac.uk and say how do I turn this idea into a motion of that kind of standard format? And somebody will be able to help with that.

Rachel

Absolutely. Well, thanks, Alan. And Sandy, thank you for coming and telling us about the work around anti-casualisation. We will speak to you soon!

[Everyone saying thanks and bye].

 [Brief music]

Rachel

That’s all for today’s LeedsUCU podcast. Thank you for listening. Please subscribe on whatever platform you’re listening to us on, so you’ll know as soon as we publish our next episode.

Alan

If you’re not yet a member of UCU, head to ucu.org.uk/join to find out more if you work at the University of Leeds in an academic or academic related, professional or managerial role, or as a postgraduate student doing paid teaching. Wherever you work, make sure you join the union for your workplace.

Rachel

This podcast is made on behalf of the committee of the University and College Union, University of Leeds Branch. If you have any questions or concerns, please e-mail our branch offices at ucu@leeds.ac.uk. See our website leedsucu.org.uk for alternative contact details and for a transcript of this episode.

This page was last updated on 18 November 2024

LeedsUCU Podcast episode 1

UCU University of Leeds Branch Posted on by

If you’d rather get your branch news in your ears, we’re experimenting with using a podcast as an alternative channel to sending branch news by emails, website and social media.

In today’s episode:

  • New university social media policy
  • Proposed changes to IT organisation
  • The big USS pensions win
  • Where we are with the pay and conditions dispute
  • What do we want in a new university vice chancellor?
  • Ways of working (home working, campus working)
  • Coming up soon:
    • General meeting 25 January
    • General secretary election hustings
    • UCU cradle to grave policy conference
    • national meeting of academic-related professional staff
    • national meeting of staff on casualised contracts
    • vacancies on the branch committee

You can listen on Spotify now and we will get it to other platforms in time.

Transcript of the episode

Rachel

Welcome to the Leeds UCU podcast for members of the University of Leeds branch of the University and College Union. I’m Rachel Walls, one of your podcast hosts. I’m also a UCU department Rep for the Lifelong Learning Centre, Branch, Committee member and saxophone and clarinet player. In our occasional picket line band Orchestrike!

Alan

And I’m Alan Smith, co-host for this podcast, and the branches administrator and organiser. We thought it might be useful for members of the UCU branch to have an alternative channel for getting your local news because reading long emails or website posts is not everyone’s first choice.

Rachel

So we’re here to be a friendly voice from the UCU University of Leeds branch to keep you better in touch with what’s going on. Such as what the elected officers are working on and what opportunities there are for you to get involved in UCU discussions, socialising, activism and decision making.

Alan

So with us today, we have Aisha Walker, who’s the branch president and hi, Aisha!

Aisha

Hi, Alan. Hi, Rachel. Hi everyone.

Alan

So first thing we want to talk about is the social media policy. There’s been a lot of talk about that. Can you tell us a bit about what’s going on?

Aisha

I think it would be fair to say that we have a lot of concerns about the social media policy. The social media policy has gone on to the university website. It has not been negotiated with trade unions and all of the campus trade unions have concerns about it, although it says in the policy that it’s not part of our terms and conditions, it also says that people can be subject to disciplinary action if they breach the policy. So we are really quite worried about it and about it restricting people’s freedom of speech, which of course is protected by law and there are new laws in place about freedom of speech. We need – the university needs to be very careful that members of staff and of course students still have the right to free speech and to say what they believe and feel is appropriate on social media, as as long as of course that it doesn’t actually break the law because in this country there are things that you’re not allowed to say, but we don’t want to see the university placing restrictions on our right to freedom of speech.

Speaker 1

So where are?

Alan

So where are we with the – erm – I mean you said that it has there hasn’t been consultation and it’s now in place. Is there anything going on with it? Is it just there and we have to sort of tackle it as as issues arise or is there still some kind of collective action going on?

Aisha

I’d just like to, uh, distinguish between consultation and negotiation so the university management did bring it to an informal meeting with the trade unions. So the university management may argue that trade unions have been consulted. However, it was not brought to trade unions before it was passed by council. And it hasn’t been negotiated with trade unions, so we have not the trade unions and there I’m talking about all three campus trade unions have not agreed to the policy it’s been put on the website. It’s been announced. At the moment, we are going to continue to try and talk to the university about it, we’ll put it on the agenda for our Joint committee meeting in a couple of weeks. But we also have to work with it and deal with cases as they arise. So please, if you find yourself getting into any kind of difficulty over the social media policy, if your manager comes to you and says you put this on Facebook or you put this on X, formerly known as Twitter, and it’s against the university’s social media policy, please do let us know. E-mail ucu@leeds.ac.uk and we can find a caseworker for you.

Alan

OK, thanks. That’s great. And yeah, obviously, we’ll, we’ll let you know if there any developments on that. And so next up and I understand the unions have been consulted over potential changes to organisation within IT. Can you tell us a bit about that?

Aisha

Yes, this was brought to one of the – we have regular informal meetings with HR, they happen once or twice a week, and this was brought to one of those meetings. So we’ve heard a full explanation of what’s happening in IT and how it is being reorganized. We have been assured that there will be no redundancies as part of this reorganisation, but I think what’s really important to say is that if you are in IT and you have any concerns about what’s going on, about what might happen to your line management, to your responsibilities, to the way that IT works, please talk to your UCU Rep – you have an excellent departmental Rep in IT, Andi Rylands, who will be very happy to hear from you if you have any concerns.

Rachel

Thanks for that, Aisha. So, the next thing we wanted to ask about was the pensions win. Hopefully members will be aware of what’s happened, but maybe you could just give them a brief reminder and let us know where we can find out more.

Aisha

Yay, the pensions, we’ve got our pensions back! So our benefits will be increased and our contributions will be reduced and you can find out more from USS. There’s also press releases on the UCU website. There will be some one off payments, so it’s best to go and look up the details for yourself, but one thing I would like to say is there’s a motion at our general meeting on Thursday. I think it probably will have happened by the time that you actually hear this podcast, but we have a motion going to the general meeting, which I hope will be passed, encouraging people to donate to our hardship fund, because the pensions win has come about as a result of our industrial action and that’s taken a long time. So we started the pensions fight in 2018 and we’ve been on strike – we’ve had strikes in every year since 2018, not just over the pensions, over terms and conditions as well. But this has meant the loss of a lot of pay, a lot of people have lost money fighting for the pensions. You will see the difference in your pay packet this month because your contributions will be reduced. So if you can donate a small part of that to the hardship fund to build up for the next fight, that will be really helpful and it will be a real show of solidarity for everybody that gave up time and pay in the fight for pensions, and I’d like to particularly thank for Leeds, Mark Taylor Batty, who is one of our committee members and also one of the national pensions negotiators. He’s done a great job keeping us informed about what’s going on, but also fighting for us, for our pensions rights in the national negotiations. So thank you, Mark. Fantastic. You’ve been doing a brilliant job.

Rachel

Absolutely. And of course, the other thing we’ve been striking over for the last few years is pay and conditions. And so I wondered where we’re at at the moment, what the local focus of the for the branch is?

Aisha

Yes, there’s a sort of different focus for the branch and nationally, because I think nationally we’re waiting for the next round of pay negotiations and as you know, we didn’t, we didn’t gain a mandate in the last ballot. But we are still in dispute locally over issues including casualization and pay and grading because the university has some discretion in terms of how it organises pay within the national framework, and we had a meeting in before immediately before Christmas over this, there is a bit of movement which I think you will get more information about today. I think the university will be sending communications about that on Wednesday the 24th, but I’m not 100% sure about that, but we are expecting to have more meetings scheduled. Again, this affects all three unions and we have all emphasised the need for this to to have visible progress, so to make sure that we get meetings in the diary with management, but I’m very pleased to say that this is happening, and again, Members, this is down to your action. So we got the university to agree to this review of the pay and grading structure as a result of our marking and assessment boycott in 2022, we agreed to call off the marking and assessment boycott on condition that the university engaged in this process. It’s taken a long time. It’s taken a very long time, but I’m pleased to say that, thanks to your work and your sacrifice, it is actually underway.

Alan

Thanks Aisha. I think one of the other things which unions have been having some discussions with the university management about is the appointment of a new Vice Chancellor. So can you tell us a bit about that?

Aisha

Well, I think there’s not a lot of that I can say because obviously the process is underway, but the three campus unions had a meeting with the recruiters Perrett Laver last week where we were able to say with, I would say, some frankness what we want to see in a new Vice Chancellor. Obviously the meeting was confidential, so I can’t give you the details of what was said, but what I would say is that Perrett Laver are organising meetings with staff across the university, so I think it’s really important that you go to those meetings and that you say what you think the university needs in the next VC, because obviously things have been difficult over the past few years. I think we really all want to see a fresh start and we know what what it is that we need to get the university back onto an even keel and to see us moving forward together.

Alan

Thanks. And the the last thing we’ve got on on the recent updates is the Ways of Working. There’s been some discussion about – this is the coming back into offices, to what extent you need to go back into the office, to what extent you can work from home, that kind of thing. So there’s been some updates around that hasn’t there?

Aisha

This is, yes Alan, this is something else that’s causing concern. Again, not just us. It’s causing concern amongst all three unions. You may have heard that you’ll you, you may have been told by your managers that you need to come into the office for a certain amount of time, three days a week has been bandied about as something that you might have to do and we know that people are very worried about this. Again, this is something where we are in active discussions again with management the proposal from management is that people should be expected to be on campus more often than not. So for more than 50% of your time. And obviously four full time staff members, that does equate to three days a week and we do have, as I said, a lot of concerns we’re concerned about space on campus, we know that some areas don’t have enough space for all staff to be in at once and we’re concerned about increased hot desking and impact on people with disabilities or even actually just regular everyday adjustments such as standing desks or chairs that fit you. We are concerned about the sustainability of asking staff to come in more frequently, especially for those staff who have to drive in, and we know that public transport is extremely unreliable, especially people coming like from areas such as Hebden Bridge. We are concerned about the things like academic staff who’ve never been required to spend a minimum amount of their time on campus and may have sustained periods where they need to work away from the campus – field work, research, just writing if home is a more peaceful space. We’re concerned about the equalities impact and that it may have a disproportionate impact on female staff. We’re also concerned actually about what evidence base is being used for these decisions because we know, because we have – obviously our constituency includes – academic researchers and we have people who research employment, work management and who tell us that actually the research base is that you will get better relationships with staff and more productivity if you give staff more flexibility about their place of work and allow remote and hybrid working, so I think that’s that’s quite a lot. But as you can see, we are worried about this and we are talking to management about it and we are fighting for those people who want to be able to work remotely to have that option.

Rachel

Brilliant. Thank you so much. And so now we’re going to change direction a little bit and ask you what what’s coming up soon, because there’s always a lot going on with UCU and I believe we’ve got a general meeting coming up.

Aisha

Yes, I’ve already mentioned the general meeting. The general meeting is Thursday the 25th of January, and as we’re recording, that is tomorrow and it’s at lunchtime. So if you hear this this podcast before the meeting, please come along. We’ve got a couple of motions. One is about an organisation called Standing together, it’s about Israel and Palestine, and we’ve got, as I’ve already mentioned, a motion about pensions and donating some of your returned – some of your reduced contributions, so yeah, some of the money that you get back through reduced contributions, to the hardship fund. General meetings are always really important because this is where you have your say over branch policy and later on in the year you’ll get the input to – the chance to input to – national policy by deciding what motions we should take to Congress. So general meeting tomorrow – it’s Wednesday today, as we’re recording. I feel a bit like, you know, the News Quiz or something like that where they’re recording it on Thursday and they don’t know what the news is going to be on Friday. So yeah, so general meetings whenever they happen. Please come along. They are really important.

Rachel

And we’ve also got another event in the calendar. Leeds is hosting a general secretary election hustings. Would you like to say a little bit about that?

Aisha

That yes. So I’m sure that you all know, I hope that you all know, that we are, we will be electing a new general secretary. The General Secretary will be in post for five years. Our current General secretary is Jo Grady. So if you don’t know if you’re not familiar with the term General Secretary, you will have had emails from Jo Grady, so you’ll know that’s the job. We’ve got 4 candidates and this is a very it’s a very important role, so it’s a very important election. Because this will do a lot to determine the union strategy over the next five years, I’m really pleased to say that all four candidates have agreed to attend our hustings, which will be on the 7th of February. We have sent an e-mail about it, but we’ll send another one and this is your chance to hear the different candidates’ visions for the union and to ask some questions about how they see the union over the next five years. So the General Secretary is a very important job. It’s a really important election. It’s probably one of the most important union elections that we have, so please do come along to the hustings and make sure that you ask the candidates the questions that you want to know. What do you want to know about their vision for the union over the next five years?

Rachel

Brilliant. So I’ll just have to beckon Alan back now because he actually left the room when we were talking about the hustings because as part of his role as administrator for our branch, he is not allowed to be seen to influence anything to do with elections, so I’ll invite him back, and perhaps he’ll ask some more questions about as the national events that are coming up.

Alan

Thank you, Rachel. Yeah. So there are some, various national events going on that Members of this branch can attend, depending on the role that they do, can you tell us a bit about what’s coming up there?

Aisha

Yeah, we’ve got the cradle to grave policy conference, which is on the 10th of February. We’ve got the academic related professional staff conference on the 14th of March and the staff on Casualized contracts annual conference on the 24th of February and I’d really encourage staff to attend, especially if you are, if you are academic related to attend the conference, or if you’re not able to attend, we’ve got a couple of people going. Andi Rylands already mentioned is a fantastic IT Rep and I believe that Emily Haikney from the library is also attending so if you’re not able to go and you’ve got things that you would like to have raised or discussed at the conference please talk to Emily and/or Andi. UCU is not despite what the newspapers frequently say, we’re not a lecturers’ union, we’re a union for academic and professional staff and it’s really important that our ARPS members are represented at all levels. So if you can contribute to that, please do. And the staff on casualized contracts the 24th of February. Again, if you’re able to go, that’s brilliant. If not, I’m not yet sure who’s going from the branch. I’m hoping that Sandy. Sandy James will be able to go as he is our anti casualisation officer and on that I’d have to say Sandy is doing a fantastic job with management actually, representing and fighting for staff on casualized contracts. So again, there’s too much casualization in the sector. I know that Leeds, again, because of your work fighting for your rights, Leeds is making progress in reducing the number of casualized contracts and Sandy is playing a particularly important role in that. So thank you.

Alan

OK. And finally in the coming up section? Further in the future, coming up, the Committee of the branch is elected in May and it takes its positions from September, but understand that there are vacancies on the committee now which we could fill sort of mid year.

Aisha

Have got vacancies, so we have a couple of vacancies for elected members because a couple of staff had to resign for different reasons, one of them, for example, had left the university. So obviously you can’t be on the committee if you’ve left the university. So if you’re interested in those, please contact Alan and he will tell you the process for being nominated. Again, being on the committee gives you a really useful chance to find out what’s going on. You hear a lot about what’s going on in the university, actually. So if you’re interested in university wide issues the committee is a good place to find out about them. We also have a current, a temporary vacancy for a campaigns officer because our campaigns officer Xanthe Whitaker is currently on parental leave and congratulations to Xanthe on the birth of her son. So the campaigns officer, as somebody who takes a lead on, as you might expect, campaigns. And again, if you want to know more about that, you can contact the committee e-mail ucu@leeds.ac.uk and we can tell you more about what that post involves. But we can also, co-opt up to 4 members, four additional committee members, and what we really want at the moment is people to take a lead on some of our equalities issues and we’d really like to increase the representation on the committee from, particularly from people from minoritized backgrounds. We need somebody who can take a lead on black members, but we’d be interested in any new members, any new committee members from minority backgrounds, whether it’s a Co opted position or as an elected member. We need somebody to take a lead on women’s issues. We really need somebody to take a lead on LGBTplus issues and we need somebody to take a lead on PGR’s. So if you are PGR and you’re interested in being part of the committee, we really could do with a PGR rep on the committee and somebody who can take a lead in working with PGR members, bringing PGR issues to committee and basically being a liaison between committee and PGRs. So we particularly would like more members from minoritized backgrounds, minoritized groups, and we’d like people to take the lead on issues relating to black members, to women, LGBTplus members and PGR members.

Alan

That’s great. Thank you, Aisha, for talking to us about all of those issues today and we look forward to the next one.

Rachel

Thanks, Aisha.

Aisha

Thank you, Alan. Thank you, Rachel.

Alan

If you would like to know more about standing for one of the committee vacancies or co-opted positions, you can contact me, Alan Smith, using the usual branch e-mail ucu@leeds.ac.uk. I want to emphasise that the committee lead positions are not about representing that group of members on the committee. It’s a normal position on the committee representing the whole of the membership of the branch on all aspects of the committees work. These are just areas where the committee wants to have someone making sure that these priority areas are kept a priority by the whole committee, so the committee is looking for a lead on issues affecting black members – UCU uses the term black in a political sense, meaning all people of colour – and issues affecting women members LGBTplus, members and disabled members, as well as a lead on issues affecting members who are postgraduate students.

Rachel This podcast is made on behalf of the committee of the University and College Union, University of Leeds Branch. If you have any questions or concerns, please e-mail our branch officers at ucu@leeds.ac.uk. See our website leedsucu.org.uk for alternative contact details and for a transcript of this episode

This page was last updated on 26 January 2024

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

This page was last updated on 20 April 2023

Fixed term contracts

UCU University of Leeds Branch Posted on by

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

This page was last updated on 30 March 2023

Information for students

UCU University of Leeds Branch Posted on by

Why are we taking action including striking? Everything you need to know about the disputes. (Including PowerPoint slides)

A QUICK GUIDE TO & FIGHTS & PENSIONS FOR STUDENTS Leeds Ucu edition

Take me straight to the slides!

Who are UCU and why are you striking?

UCU is a trade union of over 130,000 academics, researchers, tutors, administrators, IT staff, librarians and postgraduate research students in universities, colleges, prisons, adult education & training organisations across the UK. As a trade union, we fight for good working conditions for our members and for the health of the sector as a whole.

We are fighting across two separate disputes, which cover a range of issues.

Working conditions and pay: excessive and unsafe workloads which have been perpetuated for years and have got even worse over the pandemic; massive over-reliance on precarious contracts; engrained and embedded inequalities including pay and progression gaps; real terms pay cuts. Find out more about this dispute at https://www.ucu.org.uk/article/12469/FAQs#Pay_and_working_conditions_dispute

Pension cuts: massive unnecessary changes to our retirement benefits which will see a typical member lose 35% of their pension. You can find out more about our pensions dispute at https://www.ucu.org.uk/article/12469/FAQs#USS_pensions_dispute

That sounds familiar…..?

Yes. You may have noticed we took strike action in November 2022 for three days, and if you were a student last year you will remember that we took industrial action on these disputes. We also took action in 2019-20 on the same issues. In 2020 we stopped striking and returned to work, moving to remote working and teaching and dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic. As a thank you, we were given a 0% pay rise in 2021, staff on fixed term contracts were laid off and our working conditions have got worse.  In 2022, we were offered a 3% pay  rise. Inflation currently stands at 14.8% – so this is a massive real terms pay cut. Since we were out on strike in November we have received further offers from UCEA, but they were insufficient and thus we are keeping the pressure on with industrial action until they increase their pay offer and also address workload and casualisation.

Our fight to save our pension dates back to 2018. In 2018, we were made promises which led to us ending our strike; those promises have since been broken.

This cannot go on. Our employers need to negotiate sustainable solutions and keep their promises. Everyone in this sector – students and staff – deserves better.

Aren’t these national issues, not Leeds issues?

National issues are Leeds issues. Leeds staff are being hit by pension cuts and real terms pay cuts. Leeds staff are hugely overworked. Too many Leeds staff are on insecure contracts. In 2021, Leeds reported a gender pay gap of 18.9%, higher than the sector average. Across universities the race pay gap is 17% and the disability pay gap is 9% – Leeds doesn’t have the race and disability data but we know this gap exists at Leeds.

All of these issues impact students. If you are an undergraduate or taught postgraduate, some of the people teaching you are postgraduate research students, often hourly paid and on very poor contracts which they need to fund their studies. Your lecturers, personal tutors and support staff are exhausted, working long hours and often on insecure contracts – this means they can’t do their job properly and you suffer. Staff are leaving, exhausted and demoralised, and for some roles the pay is so low they can’t be replaced. Students feel the impact of this. The lack of staff of colour and disabled staff has an ongoing impact on what and how you learn. And students are our future – some of you may well want to join us as academics, researchers or professional services and support staff. We are fighting for you too.

We need national action to improve the higher education sector UK-wide. Leeds management can give authority to the national bodies that represent them in negotiations to make improved offers and they need to do so in order to resolve this dispute.

Can’t you go back to negotiations and avoid strike action?

Following three days of strike action in November, employers came back to the table and made an improved offer on pay – but it wasn’t enough and did not address the non-pay elements of our claim. Universities have been told what they need to do: tell their negotiating bodies to make a better pay offer, commit to meaningful national agreements and action on job security, workload and equality pay gaps; withdraw the current proposed changes to pensions and seek a negotiated settlement. If they don’t do this, we will strike. It is unfortunate that it takes strike action to force negotiations, but if that is what it takes, that is what we will do. We hope that the employers will make a better offer so that we can call off these strike days and get back to doing the jobs that we love.

What is a strike?

We do no work on the days we are on strike: no research, no administration, no teaching, no meetings, no emails. In return, we are not paid for those days.

On strike days, you will see physical and virtual picket lines – striking union members standing at campus entrances with leaflets and banners. Please come and talk to us and ask us your questions!

Although we withdraw our labour on strike days, many of us love teaching and learning and so offer free ‘Teachout’ sessions for students, staff and members of the general public. This year’s teachouts are scheduled for 21st, 22nd and 28th February at the moment and the details can be found here.

Strike rally on Parkinson steps with Leeds Student Staff Solidarity banner

What can I do to support you?

If a member of staff – a lecturer, tutor, support staff or anyone – that you know tells you that they are striking, tell them you support them – this will mean a great deal to them!

If you are a postgraduate research student – join us. If you do paid work for the university (or any other university), you can join on full free membership and strike with us (we have a strike fund to help with the income you will lose). If you do not do paid work for the university, you can still join on student free membership and stand in solidarity with us. (And yes, free means you don’t pay whilst you are a student)

Find us on Facebook, Twitter, Mastodon and Tiktok

The National Union of Students support our action.

Leeds University Union executive have also taken a position in support of our strike action – find out more here

There’s a student group called Leeds Student Staff Solidarity: connect with them on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/LeedsStudentStaffSolidarity), Twitter (@SSSleeds) or email them at Leedsstudentstaffsolidarity@gmail.com

Students can show solidarity by not crossing the picket line and not attending lectures or classes. BUT, if you are on a Tier 4 visa you should attend all lectures and study activities as normal or it is likely to be counted as an unauthorised absence, reportable to the Home Office.

Complain to the Vice Chancellor of the University (vice-chancellor@leeds.ac.uk and copy to ucu@leeds.ac.uk). Whether you are in favour or against the strike your opinion is important and student concerns need to be heard. UCU always asks that the pay we lose through striking is put towards the Student Hardship Fund and student mental health support, and you could ask for this too. It’s best to write in your own words, but here is a sample letter you can use if you like.

A quick guide to UCU four fights and pensions, for students

These slides can be downloaded as a PowerPoint presentation

A QUICK GUIDE TO & FIGHTS & PENSIONS FOR STUDENTS Leeds Ucu edition
BEFORE WE START What is a UNION? • It's where people who work at the same place, or do the same trade, join together to make a democratic collective, to help them to negotiate safe working conditions, fair pay and a decent and equal place to work. What is UCU? • University and College Union is the union of academic staff, including postgraduate students who teach, and university staff in professional and managerial roles, at the University of Leeds and universities and colleges across the UK. Leeds ucu
WHAT HAPPENS DURING STRIKES? 1. We withhold our labour, we don't work at all during strike days. 2. We don't get paid for the days we strike. 3.We hold physical and virtual 'picket' lines: we stand outside our workplace to tell others why we are striking Leeds Ucu еnd pay GAPS
WHY ARE WE STRIKING? 4 fights 1. INEQUALITY 2. CASUALISATION 3. WORKLOAD 4. Below inflation pay rise 17% racial pay gap 18.9% gender pay gap 9% disability pay gap 68% of research staff are on casualised contracts Leeds ucu
Significant pay gaps .17.1% racial pay gap 18.9% gender pay gap, 9% disability pay gap We are at a breaking point .4 in 5 staff surveyed are struggling with workload .86% of staff surveyed have been directed towards mental health Support because of workload www.leedsucu.org.uk Casualisation is rife in unis • 68% of research staff are on casualised contracts • 3, 545 academic staff are on Zero hour contracts Below inflation pay rise £8.70 the hourly rate of the lowest paid teacher in HE • 25% fall in salaries against inflation since 2009 Leeds ucu
What do we want? 1. Equality National agreed action to close the racial, gender and disability pay gaps. 2. Job Security agreed framework to eliminate precarious employment 3. Manageable workloads 35 hrs to be the standard weekly employment contract for all HE staff. National action to address workload. 4. Fair Pay pay rise of inflation +2% or 12%; minimum wage of £12 per hour This is a national dispute with very real local consequences. #UCURISING Leeds ucu www.leedsucu.org.uk
USS Pensions UUK voted to cut ££££ from our retirement benefits representing an annual guaranteed pension cut of 35% for a typical member THE LESS YOU ARE PAID THE LESS GOES IN YOUR PENSION Leeds UCU
SAVE OUR PENSIONS HOW DO PENSIONS WORK? We (staff) pay about 10% of our salary every month into a pension fund called USS, universities pay some into it too. WHAT IS THE ISSUE? staff will be asked to pay more for our pension and get less back at the end which means some of us will struggle financially when we're old. OUR DEMANDS 1. UCU members demand employers to revoke the massive cuts which they imposed on members of the USS pension scheme, and put pressure on USS to restore benefits to 2021 levels as soon as possible. 2. UUK to put strong pressure on USS to ensure that the next and all subsequent valuations of the financial health of the scheme to be evidence-based and are moderately prudent. WHAT HAPPENS TO THE MONEY? USS invests the money from all the university workers across the UK, and the income from those investments also goes into the USS pot. Then when we retire we get a regular income to live off. THE STATE OF USS PENSION FUND The payments that go into the pot are about £3 billion d year, the pensions that are drawn out are about £2 billion a year, and the USS scheme currently has about £88 billion pounds in the pot. younger staff, & those affected by pay gaps such as women, BAME & disabled staff will suffer the most with pension cuts
Leeds ucu What can students do? Our working conditions are your learning conditions Make your voices heard! Ask senior management to engage in meaningful negotiations with UCU Organise a fundraiser for our strike fund. We don't get paid while on strike Let striking staff know you support them! Join our teach outs on strike days! Show your support by using #UCURISING Follow us on social media @leedsucu
STRIKE DAYS 1, 9, 10, 14, 15, 16, 21, 22, 23, 27, 28 February and 1, 2, 16, 17, 20, 21, 22 March 2023 DON'T FORGET! • Make your voices be heard Our working conditions are your learning conditions • We didn't come to this decision lightly • We ask management to donate our lost wages to Leeds Student Hardship Fund • Donate to our strike fund FOLLOW US ON SOCIAL MEDIA @leedsucu @leedsucu www.leedsucu.org.uk

Sample letter to the vice chancellor

If best to use your own words, but here’s a sample letter you can use if you like:

Dear

I’m writing to ask you to use your influence to bring the current disputes in Higher Education to an end so that our staff can call off their industrial action.

I’ve learned about the issues from striking staff. Their demands are that university managements address pay inequalities, very high rates of casualisation and excessive workloads and, at a national level, agree to a proper pay rise for all staff.  They also demand that you exert your influence to get the massive cuts imposed on members in the USS pension scheme revoked, and put pressure on USS to restore benefits to 2021 levels as soon as possible.

As one of the largest universities, and to honour our commitment to social responsibility, this university community needs to set an example and show staff and students that we take staff wellbeing seriously. Please ask your employer bodies UCEA and UUK to negotiate with the University and College Union in good faith and bring the disputes to satisfactory resolution.

Can you assure me you will help prevent further escalation and further disruption to our community and to my education in this way?

Yours sincerely

This page was last updated on 17 February 2023

Anti-casualisation working group call for participation

UCU University of Leeds Branch Posted on by

As you might be aware, the University is currently going through a process of revising the contracts of staff employed for 2+ years on fixed term contracts as of end of July 2022 in light of their “Fairer Future for All” pledge (you can read what we’ve been doing so far here). 

The local branch are having discussions with senior management and HR prior to formal negotiations starting, and we need your help and feedback. There are two ways you can help:

  1. If you are inclined to help by participating in the anti-casualisation working group, please get in touch with Marina Baldissera Pacchetti, branch anti-casualisation officer, via ucu@leeds.ac.uk. We particularly encourage staff on fixed term contracts to join.
  2. If you are interested in participating in a strike day session on the fixed term contract / ”fairer future for all”, please still email Marina and share where you’d prefer to be contacted during strike days.

    This page was last updated on 25 January 2023

    Why we are striking over casualisation, pay, equal pay, and workloads

    UCU University of Leeds Branch Posted on by

    Everything you need to know about the national dispute over casualisation, pay, equal pay, and workloads (national UCU website)

    You can find more about the local aspects of the dispute in emails to members and at leedsucu.org.uk/news

    This page was last updated on 27 January 2023

    What has UCU been doing to stop casualisation?

    UCU University of Leeds Branch Posted on by

    Casualisation has been on the increase in Higher Education and at Leeds for over a decade. UCU University of Leeds branch submitted an anti-casualisation claim to the university in January 2019.

    In the last year, the industrial action taken as part of our dispute in 2021-22 and, in particular, the marking and assessment boycott, have pushed the university to act. The university’s commitment to reducing the number of fixed term contracts is expressed through the Fairer Future For All initiative. Specifically, the university has committed to transfer staff from fixed term contracts to permanent contracts if they have over two years of service (as of 31 July 2022). The UCU has noted that the pledge will bring the university in line with the law and its own policy, yet it falls far short of addressing casualisation at Leeds in a satisfactory way.

    The university has started by addressing the contracts of university staff who have been on fixed term contract for more than 10 years. In the second stage, staff on fixed term contracts with two years of service or more will be contacted for potential transition to an open-ended contract. The UCU is monitoring the process and is fighting to avoid some staff being simply transferred to open-ended fixed funding contracts, which do not offer employment security and differ from fixed term contracts mostly in terminology under current university policy. The UCU will be in negotiations during the next few months and will be pressing for the end of the use of open-ended fixed funding contracts and that the maximum number of staff are moved swiftly onto permanent contracts. 

    UCU University of Leeds branch is involved in consultation and negotiation with the university to tackle casualisation in several key areas:

    • By monitoring the process of contract change and providing casework for casualised staff being moved onto ongoing contracts to ensure that the process is transparent and fair;
    • By having anti-casualisation working group meetings and communication with HR;
    • By ongoing consultation and negotiation with the university to make sure that Fairer Future for All does not exclude casualised staff on research contracts;
    • By contributing to the development of new policies on redundancy and redeployment through a process that will ultimately be negotiated between the university and the trade unions. In particular, UCU University of Leeds branch is contributing to developing a new interface and process for redeployment, which will simplify the redeployment procedure for redeployees and redistribute the burden of responsibility;
    • By building solidarity and addressing workplace and employment issues for all casualised staff through the anti-casualisation working group, anti-casualisation reps in schools, and services across the university.

    Are you on a casualised contract? 

    Get involved: If you are interested in joining the anti-casualisation working group, please get in touch with UCU University of Leeds branch anti-casualisation officers, Marina Baldissera Pacchetti (m.baldisserapacchetti@leeds.ac.uk) and Draško Kašćelan (d.kascelan@leeds.ac.uk).

    In case you have been on a fixed term contract for more than two years as of 31 July 2022 and your contract is ending soon, please get in touch with UCU University of Leeds branch (ucu@leeds.ac.uk) who can assign you a caseworker to help in your conversations with the HR about possible transition to an open ended contract. 

    UCU rising: vote in the ongoing UCU ballot!

    Nationally, tackling casualisation is a central priority in the UCU rising campaign. As you can read in UCU’s report, ‘Precarious work in higher education’, around one-third of all academic staff in the UK are employed on fixed-term contracts; this figure rises to almost half for teaching-only academics (44%) and over two-thirds (68%) for research-only staff. These national figures stress the importance that the University of Leeds Fairer Future For All initiative is implemented for all casualised staff at the university, researchers included. Pay, equality, workload and casualisation are all intimately linked to one another, and we encourage you to engage with the campaign and VOTE #YES in the ongoing ballot to keep our employers accountable and ultimately win our disputes. 

    This page was last updated on 16 November 2022

    Negotiated offers agreed by UCU members

    UCU University of Leeds Branch Posted on by

    The following offers were negotiated between UCU and University of Leeds senior management. UCU members voted to end the marking and assessment boycott and accept these offers. This local action is in support of the ongoing national dispute.

    1. Joint Statement of the University of Leeds and University of Leeds UCU regarding the Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS)
    2. University Response to the UCU Four Heads of Claim

    Joint Statement of the University of Leeds and University of Leeds UCU regarding the Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS)

    The University of Leeds and the Leeds Branch of UCU are issuing this joint statement to mark their commitment to work collaboratively to advocate for a fair, affordable and sustainable pension scheme for members.  It is clear from consultation responses that employee members greatly value the benefits provided by the USS pension as part of their employment reward package.  Whilst they would prefer lower contributions and preserved benefits, consultation demonstrates that members are prepared to pay more in the short term to preserve pension benefits.

    The University and the Leeds UCU believe that;

    1. employer and employee members share a common interest in ensuring the USS is a fair, affordable and sustainable pension scheme.
    2. the USS scheme should be responsive to the needs of both employers and employees and that this is a central aspect of making the scheme attractive and preventing members from opting out.
    3. the USS Trustee should now be asked to consider a revised schedule of contributions and that should any upside arise from either a new schedule of contributions and recovery plan for 2020 and/ or a future valuation of the scheme’s assets and liabilities, improving the benefits for employee members of the USS should be a priority.
    4. the optimal timing for the next valuation should be considered and then concluded in an expeditious timescale.  We call on the USS Trustee to commit to prepare valuations which are evidence based and when conditions allow moderately prudent, and that they should lobby for a regulatory environment that recognises the unique nature of the Higher Education sector, with a view to schemes such as USS being able to take a different attitude to asset investment and de-risking.
    5. USS should continue to be run on the basis that it remains an open scheme with a commitment from employers to a strong covenant which enables investment into growth assets and returns on investments that improve the value of the scheme for employee and employer members; Employers should continue to provide covenant support through the future valuation process and agree that this should be available to benefit proposals presented to the JNC by either UUK or UCU to ensure open and timely discussions. 
    6. USS should be asked to develop a credible/feasible plan for divesting from fossil fuels.
    7. UUK, UCU and USS should support the rebuilding of trust through a transparent and evidence based approach to communications, that includes rapidly and publicly correcting any emerging errors of fact.  This should include a commitment to treating consultations on UCU and UUK proposals respectively, in a transparent manner.
    8. proposals for governance reform of the scheme should be urgently developed and progressed and UUK and UCU should be jointly and actively engaged in the related joint workstream.  Transparency of governance of USS to be increased.
    9. as soon as possible, over-arching  high level sector-wide equalities impact assessments (EIAs) should be carried out and published to understand any direct or indirect discrimination arising from any scheme changes or options proposals. UCU and UUK should actively engage in the workstreams to explore an attractive and affordable range of  options to enable all staff to participate in the scheme.
    10. the maintaining a meaningful Defined Benefit element within the scheme is a principle which we support, whist also recognising that a well performing defined contributions scheme may provide enhanced benefits for some.

    University Response to the UCU Four Heads of Claim

    Casualisation

    The University is committed to a Review of Employment Terms, which includes responding to the Leeds UCU anti-casualisation claims.   Work on this began in 2020 and has included engagement with the TUs from its commencement.  It is acknowledged that the review, which is a major exercise, has not progressed as quickly as planned. We will refocus our prioritisation of this work and will develop a timetable to monitor and report on delivery progress.  This would also include reports on progress on actions falling on the unions (TUs).

    The Fixed Term Contracts review is a key and first stage of the Review of Employment Terms and collective consultation with unions for the proposed changes commenced on Monday 30 May 2022.  Other contracts review, including a review of the position of hourly paid staff and discussions regarding terms of engagement for PGRs who teach, will follow during the Autumn term, with priority sequencing and realistic timescales set, informed by discussion with unions.

    The outcome of consultations will be taken to the joint committees for negotiation and/or ratification if necessary.  Key to this would be the avoidance of elongation of processes wherever possible.

    The University wishes to review the effectiveness and efficiency of the current framework in place for engagement with the unions, including on consultation or negotiation, with a view to enhancing this.  The Procedural Agreement between the University and the UCU sets out in detail the respective areas for consultation or negotiation and we reaffirm our commitment to following these and to enhancing dialogue.

    The University also continues to actively input into national discussions regarding the core models of employment in HE (through UCEA and more recently with UKRI) and proactive engagement with relevant commitments such as the Concordat for researchers.  We believe our Review of Employment Terms to be innovative and potentially helpful to the sector and will share the outcome of our review with UCEA.

    The University remains committed to in-sourced services across its core activities.

    Gender, race and disability pay gaps

    The University commits to report on race & disability pay gaps in 2023.  We would ask that the unions support the encouragement of staff to declare the related personal information to progress this work to help ensure that the reporting is as meaningful and accurate as is possible.

    The University is committed to reducing pay gaps and continuing to ensure equal pay for work of equal value.  It is also committed to increasing the diversity of our workforce through positive action, reflected in the new EDI Strategy for which an action plan is being developed and which will include KPIs and milestones to measure success.  It has also made key investments in senior EDI leadership posts. Our aim is that Leeds is a Pathfinder in relation to EDI strategy and its delivery. We will consult with the unions in our development of the action plan and welcome their support in its implementation.

    To reiterate, the University is committed to reducing pay gaps and to ensuring equal pay for work of equal value.  Specific examples of areas of challenge within universities are the STEM disciplinary and BAME staff pipelines.  We are active participants in sector initiatives to help address these and are developing our own as well.

    Workload

    The University is committed to the development of a health and wellbeing strategic plan (as part of our enabling strategy) which will include consideration of work-related stress and ill health.  This will be informed by a staff survey shortly to be launched.

    Workload issues across the sector and in the University are acknowledged and we have worked jointly with UCU since May 2021 to review ‘Workload Principles’. The latest revised version (including UCU input) is currently progressing  through  University committees for approval.  Once approved,  the Deputy Vice-Chancellor will lead the process of their implementation and review of impacts with trade union involvement and share relevant data as to impact with trade unions.

    The University will discuss with the unions how we and they can work collaboratively to review workloads.  We will also review the role the SRDS might usefully play in workloads differentiating based on career stage and contract type.  The University’s commitments and work associated with the Concordat for research staff is also relevant.

    Review of the pay and grading structure

    The University commits to fully review the pay & grade spine and to complete this in 2022/23 and will involve the unions in this process.   This strategic review will include a benchmarking exercise with peer institutions and best practice.  It will also include consideration of grade structures, incremental progression and market pay issues with a view to the University of Leeds staff having competitive (equal or better) reward packages to staff at peer universities and the University being an attractive employer of choice. Our commitments to equality, diversity and inclusion will be embedded in this work.

    The University reward strategy is moving towards a more peer and benchmark comparison approach.  We will strengthen the role evaluation process for determining role grades.   A G10 review is underway with a view to ensuring it is fair and competitive.

    The University also plans to fully review its Promotions and Role Evaluation processes.  A staged implementation of improvements is already in train and will progress.  Trade unions will be involved in the role evaluation process, for which training will be provided in HERA-based role analysis.

    The above commitments and their progression in a timely way will require resource and shared commitments by the unions.   The University commits to ensuring that people with the required skills, expertise and workload capacity are involved in the work to deliver these commitments.

    The University reiterates its intention to review the current framework in place for engagement with the unions with a view to its enhancement and effectiveness in supporting positive and effective relationships.

    This page was last updated on 10 June 2022

    Leeds UCU response to the ‘fairer future for all’ pledge on reducing short-term contracts and boosting job security

    UCU University of Leeds Branch Posted on by

    We welcome the Vice Chancellor’s announcement which commits to addressing the issue of job insecurity at the University of Leeds. Acknowledging the damage insecure contracts do to the functioning of the university but, more importantly, to the people who hold them, is an important first step in addressing what is a widespread problem. We fully agree with the VC that insecure contracts undermine fairness at the university. We are glad that casualisation is now part of the conversation after being ignored for so long. 

    Members may remember that we have been urging the University to move on the issue of casualisation for some years. In January 2019 Leeds UCU formally submitted an anti-casualisation claim, which set out our proposals to end job insecurity at the University of Leeds. The claim included, but was not limited to: 

    1. an end to the use of ‘worker’ contracts;
    2. hourly-paid staff to be moved onto fractional contracts;
    3. equal treatment for all staff, regardless of contract type (specifically equal rates of pay, and access to progression and professional development); and
    4. a reduction in the use of fixed-term contracts (FTCs).

    Today’s announcement represents movement on one aspect – fixed-term contracts – and as such, we view this as some progress against our existing ongoing claim. The University’s stated aim of “converting the majority of fixed term contracts where colleagues have served more than three years – or possibly even less – to ongoing contracts” essentially amounts to the enforcing of its existing fixed-term contract policy. We hope that this new approach will see the end of the category of “open-ended fixed funding (OEFF) contracts, which UCU have been saying for some time are indistinguishable from fixed term contracts. Above all, we recognise that being made permanent is likely to have a tangible and positive effect on the work and lives of the unacceptably large number of staff who have been on FTCs for more than three years. 

    We are pleased to note the VC’s stated commitment to consult formally with the trade unions on the issue of fixed-term contracts and secure work, however these are matters for formal negotiation. In the three years since launching our claim, Leeds UCU has repeatedly requested formal talks with university senior management. While issues pertaining to the claim have been discussed at meetings between HR and the unions, senior management have not engaged in formal talks with UCU. Since October when the Fairer Future pledges were made, discussions on FTC policy and wider issues around the use of casualised contracts have been abandoned by HR. 

    In light of this, consultation is welcome and we look forward to a resumption of talks on addressing job security but, ultimately, given that we have lodged an anti-casualisation claim with the university, the terms of which have been reaffirmed by Leeds UCU as recently as March 2021, this is an issue for negotiation. 

    While we have some misgivings about the VC making this major announcement in an all-staff email at a time when the UCU is involved in national and local disputes over casualisation, we welcome her stated willingness to work with the unions. We want members to be clear – we are in no doubt that today’s announcements by the University have been prompted by the strength of industrial action taken by our members over the Four Fights.

    In terms of our national dispute on casualisation, these plans to address job security laid out by the VC today leave several important factors unaddressed:  

    1. The plans we have been presented with show a willingness to act on the issue of casualisation, but we need to see the detail of how this will be implemented and whether it will become lasting policy which minimises job insecurity going forward. Until the substantive details of UEGs plans are clear, UCU will be entering into discussions cautiously;
    2. Fixed-term contracts are only one aspect of casualisation; we need to know how (or whether) other aspects of job insecurity will be addressed; and, relatedly, 
    3. While there is much that can be done at the institution level to address casualisation, this is also a national issue. As the address acknowledges, insecure work is “hardwired” into many of the national institutions that are a core part of UK higher education —and, as such, it requires a coordinated national response. We need to know what efforts University of Leeds will make to engage with the national structural causes of casualisation. We believe taking an active and constructive role in negotiating with the UCU’s proposals around Four Fights is the best chance the sector has to do this. 
    4. All aspects of our Four Fights dispute intersect with casualisation; casualisation often results in low pay and overwork as a result of unpaid and unrecognised work. Importantly, casualisation is central to our equalities demands where women, staff of colour and staff with disabilities are more likely to be on insecure contracts and remain on them longer. These continue to be issues of serious concern for our members and all university staff and we are still waiting to see serious action on them.

    In summary, we welcome the VCs new commitment to addressing casualisation. But this announcement only deals with one part of one of the Four Fights, and we have seen no movement from the VC regarding the erosion in pay that we have witnessed since 2009, equality pay gaps and unsafe workloads. Further to this, we would like to see a commitment to tackling casualisation at a national level which would make these changes more sustainable for the future. For this reason, we encourage all members to vote YES, YES, YES, YES and post their ballots TODAY.

    This page was last updated on 20 April 2022