Supporting schoolteachers by reducing university workloads

UCU University of Leeds Branch Posted on by

The UCU branch committee sends our thanks and support to schoolteachers in the National Education Union whose refusal to work in dangerous conditions forced the government to move more quickly in moving most school teaching online. Their action has made us all more safe.

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This page was last updated on 25 January 2021

New lockdown

UCU University of Leeds Branch Posted on by 
Message from branch president Ben Plumpton sent to members Tuesday 5 January 2020

Happy New Year, and here’s hoping it is a better one than 2020…

I’m writing to let you know that Leeds UCU is working hard on your behalf related to the current lockdown and with regard to the seriousness of the increasing pandemic. In particular, we have asked the VC to:

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This page was last updated on 25 January 2021

Motions passed at General Meeting on 22 October 2020

UCU University of Leeds Branch Posted on by

Members of the branch agreed the following motions at the General Meeting on 22 October 2020.

Redundancies

This branch instructs its officers and committee to organise the necessary steps to mobilise the branch to stop any proposed redundancies in the Faculties of Medicine and Health and Biological Sciences.

Motion to UCU LGBT+ members’ conference – Campaign for GRA reforms and against asylum seeker persecution

Conference notes that the rise of the alt right and political scapegoating has led to a very significant rise in LGBT+ hate crime and a consequent rise in LGBT+ asylum seekers.
Conference further notes the failure of the Government to implement the Gender Recognition Act (GRA) reforms.

Conference resolves:

  1. To raise the profile of the UCU campaign for reform of the GRA.
  2. To campaign for an end to the persecution of asylum seekers.

Motion to UCU Women members’ conference – Caring responsibilities during the pandemic

Conference notes that:

  • Many members, often women, have caring responsibilities for children or for family members who are older, ill or disabled.
  • COVID-19 has particularly impacted carers’ ability to work their full contracted hours, due for example to children being home because of nursery/school outbreaks, difficulty in arranging tests, and needing to support household members who have symptoms or are otherwise required to isolate.
  • This is not a temporary problem which can be accommodated through normal carers’ or parental leave policies.
  • Expecting carers to fit their full contracted hours around caring responsibilities, i.e. by working evenings and weekends, is unacceptable and will result in health problems.


Conference resolves that:

  • UCU should develop guidance for branches on negotiating policies for:
    • safe flexible working and additional special leave for carers during the pandemic
    • no career detriment through carers being unable to achieve expected research outputs or other objectives.

Re-affiliation and online subscription to Labour Research Department publications

This branch notes that the Labour Research Department is an independent research organisation which has provided information and resources for trades unions reps and negotiators for over 100 years.

This branch believes that Labour Research Department (LRD) booklets including Law At Work are a valuable resource on employment law and best practices for trade union reps.

This branch agrees to re-affiliate to Labour Research Department and to re-subscribe to LRD booklets online on an annual basis, the cost to be set by the Labour Research Department, except that if the cost goes above £500 this will be reconsidered at a General Meeting.

Re-affiliation to Leeds Trades Unions Council

This branch notes:

  • That Leeds Trades Unions Council (Leeds TUC) is, and has been for a century and a half, a valued way for members of local trade union branches from different workplaces across the city to work together on common issues at a grass roots level, to support each other, and to celebrate and promote the work of trades unions in the city.
  • That Trades Council delegate meetings take place on the last Wednesday of the month (except December), starting at 7pm at the Swarthmore Education Centre, Woodhouse Square, Leeds, and that this branch is entitled to send up to ten delegates to the meetings.


This branch agrees:

  • To re-affiliate to Leeds TUC on an annual basis, cost to be set by Leeds TUC, except that if the cost goes above £500 this will be reconsidered at a General Meeting.
  • That the committee should appoint up to ten delegates to represent the branch at Leeds TUC each year.

This page was last updated on 5 July 2021

Coronovirus cases still too high and teaching continues despite SAGE advice

UCU University of Leeds Branch Posted on by

Today the University released figures suggesting the cases of Coronovirus reported in the last week numbered 269 new cases. They have also added 82 additional cases to last week’s total, due to late reporting, bringing that figure to 640. It seems the additional control measures are not doing enough. Face to Face teaching and student support are still going on in some parts of the University despite the large number of cases reported a week ago, and since last week’s initial publication of numbers, there have been no further policy changes or communications about teaching. Furthermore, we are concerned about the possibility of under-reporting meaning that the real figures could be much higher.

The University of Leeds are still working on the basis that schools/services can decide whether teaching/support is safe and pedagogically necessary. Given the looseness of this guidance, inconsistent practices continue, although we welcome that some schools have reduced or removed on campus teaching and events. Nonetheless, teaching and support staff are still being asked to come in, and we are particularly concerned for colleagues on fractional contracts and PGR teaching staff who may be compelled to teach on campus or lose their income. In the emergency meeting on the 1st of October, a motion was passed stating we will register a dispute with Leeds University management if they insist on proceeding with coercion of staff into face to face activity, deeming it to be in breach of the university policy on Dignity and Mutual Respect.

On Monday night it was revealed that the government’s scientific advisers recommended three weeks ago that all university and college teaching should be online unless face to face sessions were absolutely necessary. We are frustrated that University leaders are not listening to either to this scientific advice or UCU, who have been calling for a move online since even earlier in September.

UCU continue to support colleagues who are being asked to teach or do other face to face work on campus but feel unsafe to do so. Please speak with your local rep or contact ucu@leeds.ac.uk for support if you are in this situation. Branch officers will continue to use our meetings with University management to call for an end to in-person activities. An ordinary general meeting is scheduled for next Thursday 22nd of October for further discussion amongst members.

This page was last updated on 24 June 2021

Covid-19: motions passed at emergency general meeting 1 October

UCU University of Leeds Branch Posted on by

Members of the branch agreed the following motions at the emergency general meeting 1 October 2020.

Motion 1

Leeds University UCU instructs the Leeds University UCU branch committee to register a dispute with Leeds University management if they insist on proceeding with coercion of staff into face to face activity, which is widely acknowledged to be unsafe. This branch considers this to be in breach of the university policy on Dignity and Mutual Respect.

Motion 2

This union recognises:
  1. Good practice on Health and Safety in numerous areas by University management.
  2. Continuing difficulties and deficiencies in other areas, which must be resolved urgently in view of the Covid-19 pandemic. 
This union notes: 
  1. The refusal of managers in LUBS to disclose the findings of test surveys carried out on ventilation systems in School premises – including teaching rooms – to UCU Safety Reps. 
  2. The lack of a clear undertaking from senior University managers, in response to requests at the “Working Together” (“Town Hall”) meeting on 29 September, 2020, to ensure that such reports would be shared with UCU Safety Reps across the University. 
  3. The duty placed upon employers by HSE Safety Representatives and Safety Committees Regulations (1977) and relevant Code of Practice, to: 
    1. allow Safety Reps “to inspect and take copies of any document relevant to the workplace or to the employees the safety representatives represent” (Reg 7), and to: 
    2. “make available to safety representatives the information, within the employer’s knowledge, necessary to enable them to fulfil their functions” (Reg 7), including: 
    3. “technical information about health and safety hazards and precautions needed to eliminate or minimise them, regarding machinery, plant, equipment, processes” (COP 7b), and:
    4. “any other information specifically related to matters affecting the health and safety at work of their employees, including the results of any measurements taken by the employer or people acting on their behalf in the course of checking the effectiveness of their health and safety arrangements” (COP 7d). 
This union believes:
  1. That the University of Leeds is currently in breach of statutory requirements of the Health and Safety at Work Act (1974). 
This union resolves: 
  1. To formally request the prompt disclosure of all relevant ventilation reports to UCU Safety Reps. 
  2. To set a reasonable timetable for said disclosure. 
  3. To formally report to the HSE any failure by the University to disclose these reports in a reasonable and timely way.
  4. To register a dispute with Leeds University management in the event of any failure by the University to disclose these reports in a reasonable and timely way. 

Motion 3

Title: Care responsibilities in the context of COVID -19: flexible working and contingency plans

This branch notes:
  1. That COVID-19 is having a different impact on staff according to whether they have caring responsibilities for children and elderly relatives, and will potentially be more pronounced where the person cared for has additional care needs. For example, if a child of a University employee is required to quarantine because household members show COVID -19 symptoms then staff with caring responsibilities will be affected even if they themselves are not unwell. If it is not possible to undertake the test due to the limited testing capacity in the UK, the parent/carer employee(s) are also required to quarantine.
  2. That when schools close due to local outbreaks of COVID-19, there is no public childcare available and parents will be responsible for home-schooling and care of pre-schoolers. Not all employees with care responsibilities have family networks to support childcare if children are home from school due to confirmed or suspected COVID-19.
  3. That due to the increased surveillance and necessary caution regarding spreading of COVID-19 in the UK and areas with additional lockdown measures children are more likely to need to be kept home from school than during non-pandemic times and this may occur multiple times. This may be due to their own symptoms or due to outbreaks in their class or school.
  4. That the University management has included in all staff official communication messages of empathy about the specific challenges related to child and elderly care for staff, recognising that this may impact on the ability of the employee to work according to the contracted hours. However, no leave or equality policy has been changed as a result.
  5. That a “Return to campus survey” has been carried out to identify specific circumstances and challenges that different members of staff may experience on the basis of their protected characteristics, but that the survey’s section on childcare made a problematic assumption about partners (or other family members) being available to cover the extra care work required in case of illness.
  6. That current workload models do not account for this specific and exceptional context in terms of staffing, e.g. to replace members on sick leave and contingency plans. The current risk is that other colleagues with no care responsibilities may see their workload increase.
  7. That a clear staffing and contingency plan would reduce the stress and anxiety currently present among staff, especially female staff with caring responsibilities, that is due to the uncertainty and variability in how individual managers will treat this situation.
  8. That the university cannot deal with this situation on a case-by-case basis, but there must be a policy, with case-by-case considerations where that policy specifically does not work.
  9. that multi-generational households in BAME communities face specific challenges during the COVID pandemic where individuals have care responsibilities for both elderly parents and children
This branch resolves:
  1. To negotiate with management a new policy for staff with care responsibilities that considers the new challenges brought by COVID-19, especially due to increased likelihood of school and nursery closures and increased need for sick leave. This policy must address practical difficulties of juggling work around childcare in a concrete way.
  2. That reassurance should be given to workers with care responsibilities to reflect this new exceptional, time-limited situation, especially in the coming winter months.
  3. The policy should go beyond recognising the generic need for ‘flexibility’ which is already built into academic roles, and that flexible working arrangements cannot simply mean that staff will ‘catch up’ with work at unsociable hours (e.g. the evening or weekend) as a new standard but that objective reduction in working hours must be considered.
  4. That our UCU representatives should negotiate with management to include the following elements in the future policy on care issues:
    1.  Specific acknowledgement that no detriment will result for staff who are unable to fulfil their contracted hours when the household and children are isolating but have been directed not to get a test (this is aligned to Athena Swan), all staff should be able to re-arrange their working hours or access leave in this circumstance.
    2.   In the best-case that the university supports private avenues of testing for all staff and their family members if they wish to minimise staff stress and facilitate return to normal working. As a minimum the policy should include specific acknowledgement for all staff (regardless of their caring responsibilities) that finding and attending a COVID-19 test is time consuming. This is because local availability is often limited and the availability of tests is unpredictable meaning that a person who needs a test will need to keep checking the website intermittently over a day or two. The rules on taking a test prevent other household members from being tested until they show symptoms. So a parent may need to organise a test for a child and then later for themselves as symptoms develop. Multiple testing within one household is very time consuming.
    3.  Consideration will be made of this disruptive time to productivity similar to how career breaks and part-time work result in pro-rata adjustment to expected productivity/outputs through, for example, specific allowance for special pandemic-related carers leave over and above the statutory allowance.
    4.  The policy should stipulate that ‘flexible working’ to accommodate caring responsibilities should not be accessed to the extent that it prevents the person from being able to have a reasonable amount of rest time within a typical week.
    5.  ‘Flexible working’ to accommodate caring responsibilities should explicitly exclude the assumption that the person can still be reasonably expected to work contracted hours if the only way this could be achieved is by including weekend work. This should be discouraged because it is not sustainable and will result in decreased long-term productivity due to burn-out.

This page was last updated on 5 July 2021

Email to the vice-chancellor about covid-19 response

UCU University of Leeds Branch Posted on by

The UCU branch committee emailed the University of Leeds vice chancellor on Tuesday 29 September 2020 in response to the message from the university “Arrangements in the new academic year – a message from the Vice-Chancellor” (opens in new tab) received Friday 25 September 2020.

Dear Vice-Chancellor,

On behalf of Leeds UCU, I’d like to welcome your statement to staff.  We are absolutely in agreement with you that the most important priority is to protect the health and safety of the entire University community. And we are very glad that you are encouraging more use of online teaching during the COVID period. The university approach until now has been that schools must provide some face to face teaching, including those schools who had planned for fully online, and it’s good to see concerns about safety now overriding the hybrid model.  However, we would encourage you to go a step further, and insist that the only activities that should take place on campus are those which are impossible to do any other way (eg some practical sessions).  Tutorials, seminars and other small group teaching, supervisions, careers appointments and so on can be done very effectively online (and indeed have been done online since the campus lockdown in March).  This is in line with the recommendations from yesterday’s emergency report by the independent SAGE group, and we would urge the university to follow those recommendations (copied below) in full.

The campus trade unions have worked closely with university Health and Safety staff to make the campus environment as safe as possible, and our input to this has been welcomed.  UCU’s view now is that, with increased rates of COVID-19 nationally and locally, the university must limit as far as is possible the amount of activity on campus, in order to reduce the risk to everyone, including essential workers and the staff teaching and supporting those activities which can only be done on campus.

We are also glad to see your emphasis on student and staff mental health and wellbeing.  We can see from what’s already happened in Scotland, and now in nearby northern universities like Liverpool and Manchester, that outbreaks amongst students are highly likely, as was predicted by scientific modelling. Being ill or having to isolate in an unfamiliar place, and not being able to socialise, must be awful for students, especially new students who won’t have an established support network.  We are concerned that students should not be blamed for local outbreaks – this is a consequence of so many people travelling around the country and mixing, however stringent the safety precautions. We would of course encourage more university provision of student counselling and support.  But we also think that students should be allowed or even encouraged to return home at least until Christmas if they would feel happier doing so (see also recommendations 3 and 4 below).  And we are clear that staff would feel more supported by the university if no-one (including hourly paid graduate teaching assistants) felt obliged to work on campus if they don’t feel safe doing so for any reason.

I look forward to meeting you soon when we can discuss these issues further in person.

Cheers,

Ben

Ben Plumpton
Pronouns: She/Her/Hers
University of Leeds UCU President

Please ask me about joining your trade union
Latest Leeds UCU news at https://www.leedsucu.org.uk   or on Twitter https://twitter.com/leedsucu   

From Independent SAGE report 28 September 2020:

“Modelling shows that transmission occurs in residential halls and through in-person teaching. Thus, Independent SAGE recommends that universities immediately implement these five key recommendations:

1. Transfer all teaching and learning online by default.

2. Make essential in-person teaching and learning (e.g., components of laboratory or practicebased courses) contingent on the regular testing of students and staff, with a ‘dashboard’ approach as adopted by US Colleges, and with stringent adherence to face coverings, handwashing, physical distancing, and ventilation mitigations.

3. Offer students the choice whether to live on campus / in their university accommodation or at home elsewhere (e.g., with parents and caregivers) and review at the end of the calendar year (i.e., December), and avoid numerous journeys between home and university.

4. Ensure that students who choose to remain at university while learning online maintain the right to return home for the rest of the term at any point, with accommodation fees refunded, and with testing before doing so.

5. Ensure full and generous support to students both to self-isolate and to access online learning resources, including practical needs (e.g., food, laundry), learning (e.g., IT, connectivity), and social and emotional needs (e.g., buddy systems, regular wellbeing checks, online events).”

This page was last updated on 29 September 2020

Committee calls emergency general meeting for all members

UCU University of Leeds Branch Posted on by

In light of the continuing concerns about the health and safety during the pandemic, the committee has called an emergency general meeting Thursday 1st October, 1-2 pm.

The meeting will also include a report from our representatives to the UCU special Higher Education sector conference about how universities nationally are responding to the pandemic, including the outcome of the motion we submitted from Leeds.

Please put the date in your calendar now!

We’ll send details of how to join the meeting by email nearer the time.

This page was last updated on 25 September 2020

University improves position on face to face teaching

UCU University of Leeds Branch Posted on by 
Message to members on behalf of the branch committee, Friday 25 September 2020

Following our email to the deputy vice chancellor on 18th September, and the dismissive response that we initially received, we note that communication has now come from the vice-chancellor stating that thinking around face to face teaching at University of Leeds is ‘evolving’ and that:

“Where it is safe, practicable, and pedagogically advantageous or necessary, teaching should be delivered face-to-face, rather than online. However, in instances where those criteria cannot be met, we would recommend that you move your teaching online.” 

Our position is that all teaching should be online unless it is absolutely necessary to do it face to face, and we are pleased to see the university moving towards that position. The health and safety of staff and students ought to be at the heart of planning.

There are still some uncertainties about the statement: in particular, the statement that small classes are expected to remain face to face is vague and needs further clarification. And we are increasingly worried about the public health implications of large numbers of people on campus and in residence at the university.

We understand that a significant number of students are already, in induction week, self-isolating, and the signs from Scotland, where students are being told not to socialise this weekend, are not good.

It remains our position that the university must limit as far as is possible the amount of activity on campus, in order to reduce the risk to everyone, including essential workers and staff teaching and supporting activities which can only be done on campus. We call upon the university senior management to work with campus trades unions across all areas of university activity over the challenging weeks to come. 

Staff must not be required to work on campus unnecessarily, and, any UCU members with specific health and safety concerns about being required to work on campus should contact the branch for support – email ucu@leeds.ac.uk. We are particularly concerned about reports that casualised and hourly paid staff are being asked to take on a disproportionate amount of on campus work. 

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This page was last updated on 25 September 2020

Senior management’s dismissive response to concerns about unnecessary face to face teaching and services

UCU University of Leeds Branch Posted on by

The UCU committee wrote to the deputy vice-chancellor for student education on 18 September expressing the serious concerns of UCU members about the pressure, in some cases last-minute, from the university executive group to plan in more face to face teaching than staff in schools felt was necessary in the circumstances. The letter asked that the requirements on Schools to provide face to face teaching and student support be lifted, and that the University adopt a policy of all teaching and student support being provided online over Semester 1 at least, unless there is no alternative.

We understand that a clarification we received from the HR team is intended as a response to our letter. It emphasises that management’s approach has been consistent that teaching will be “Hybrid: Large groups online; small groups & practicals [face to face] where safe and practicable” (23 April). The response notes the university executive group ‘affirmation’ in August that the “offer is hybrid, [the] guarantee is online.”

And continues:

The implementation of this University-wide approach has been determined within each Faculty
This confirms the University position and that it has been consistent throughout.
The communications are on-going and an open house Q&A about delivery planning is being arranged. It would be much appreciated if, where relevant, you would relay this information to anyone who is raising concerns with you and suggest that they raise any specific concerns directly with the relevant Dean who will be best placed to respond to them as they will have been involved in the above decision-making process.

The UCU committee raised serious concerns about the unnecessary risk to the health of staff, students and the wider public of this insistence on bringing staff and students to the university for classes even when those delivering the modules don’t think it is necessary or the right approach pedagogically in the circumstances. The situation with the pandemic has changed significantly recently, with increases in infection rates both nationally and locally, so the teaching approach needs to be adapted accordingly. But the reverse has happened, with disciplines who had planned wholly online delivery being told they must provide face to face activities as well (optional ones, because many students themselves will not be able to attend campus).

We have seen what has happened in the US when campuses re-opened, and more recently in Scotland whose term started about two weeks before ours. We are not being “emotional” when we insist that the health and safety of our staff, students, and everyone they come into contact with should be the top priority. This is rational, and it is based on empirical data. We believe that minimising the number of people on campus is the best way to reduce the risk for everyone, including essential workers and staff teaching or supporting activities which can only be done face to face.

But the response from the senior management of the university seems to be that any fault lies in those who thought online teaching was the best approach for most modules – that they ought to have listened more closely to the “blended learning” message from the university executive group.

Members of the UCU committee are extremely disappointed that, instead of addressing widespread concerns about the safety of staff, students and the wider community, the response from management is that any concerned individuals should speak to their faculty deans.

The UCU committee is organising another emergency general meeting to collectively decide our next steps if the university executive group continues to put the health of our university community at unnecessary risk as the pandemic second wave escalates.

In the meantime, any Leeds UCU members with specific health and safety concerns about being required to work on campus should contact the branch for support – email ucu@leeds.ac.uk.

See further details of the Leeds UCU position on face to face activity on campus.

This page was last updated on 25 September 2020

Face to face activity on campus

UCU University of Leeds Branch Posted on by

UCU’s position, both nationally and locally, is that all teaching in the coming term should be online (except for very limited cases where this is not feasible), and that all other university work that can be done online should continue online. Keeping the numbers on campus to an absolute minimum is the best way to avoid spreading the virus around the university community and beyond. Our General Meeting on 15th September overwhelmingly agreed on this, see link below to the wording of the motions passed on this issue.

We know many of you are worried and stressed about being required to return to campus, and we are hearing many concerns from departmental reps and individual members where school plans for wholly online teaching are being altered, at the behest of senior management, to include some face to face teaching and other events. Since some students will be unable to attend campus to attend these newly-proposed face to face activities, they are by definition non-essential.  Requiring staff to come onto campus is particularly worrying now, given increases in the COVID-19 infection rate both nationally and locally. And we are concerned that requirements to work on campus will fall disproportionally on casualised staff, who are often in a difficult position financially, and also that this may have equalities impacts (because of for example the higher infection rates and mortality rates in BAME communities, which means higher risks for those staff).

Your branch officers, together with the other campus trade unions, have been working hard over the summer trying to improve the university’s support to staff during lockdown and to address health and safety issues. The unions have been meeting with management two or three times a week and doing our best to negotiate and influence the university’s approach. Our input on Health and Safety, aiming to make things as safe as possible for anyone who needs to return to campus and for students (including building checks, room occupancy limits, social distancing, face covering arrangements etc) has been welcomed so far and improvements made as a result. However, we believe that the situation has now changed materially, and staff, students, our families and friends, and the wider local community need to be protected as fully as possible. Hence our position that everything that can be done online must now be done online, until at least Christmas.

At the start of the COVID outbreak, we in Leeds UCU were trying to persuade our management to lock down earlier, as were union branches elsewhere. Sadly that didn’t happen, which across the country probably contributed to the scale of the pandemic. We feel it’s desperately important, both locally and nationally, to avoid universities contributing to a surge in cases, and therefore it is crucial to stay online wherever possible.

We’ll keep you in touch more regularly in this fast changing situation. We may need an Emergency General Meeting to consider potentially raising a dispute on this issue – look out for further emails soon.

More information:

I know many of you are working incredibly hard at the moment, and often in very difficult situations. You are important, and together our contributions to the university are important – remember what we said in our strike placards and rallies:  we are the university! Please look after yourself as best you can, and if you have problems then do ask the union for help.  Please also continue to support each other across roles, contract types and diverse backgrounds – together we are strong!  We need to use that collective strength to protect everyone.

In solidarity,

Ben

Ben Plumpton
Pronouns: She/Her/Hers
University of Leeds UCU President

This page was last updated on 22 September 2020