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

Letter to senior management about unnecessary face to face teaching and student services during covid-19 pandemic

UCU University of Leeds Branch Posted on by 
Email sent 2.15pm Friday 18 September 2020 on behalf of UCU University of Leeds Branch to the University of Leeds deputy vice-chancellor for student education, copied to the university secretary and to the director of Human Resources.

Dear [deputy vice-chancellor]

We are writing to you in relation to the increasing pressure which is being experienced by staff to provide face to face teaching on campus over this academic year. Over the summer, staff involved in teaching and student support have worked incredibly hard to produce teaching materials, and design teaching and student support and community building processes that operate online in order to provide student education in safe circumstances. A number of Schools and Faculties had had plans approved to provide student education wholly online in Semester 1, because of their judgment that teaching and student support can not only be effectively provided online but, in many cases, can be better provided online given social distancing rules that will impact how we work face to face. We now understand that those Schools are being required to provide face to face activity where none was previously planned, requiring changes in planning, staff to teach face to face and in many cases provision to be less good than it would have been online given the requirements of social distancing.

We are deeply concerned about this. Any face to face activity constitutes a risk of COVID-19 spread; measures can be taken to mitigate that risk, but the only way that University activity can be COVID safe is by conducting it online. The fact that some Schools had not planned for face to face activity means that such activity cannot reasonably be considered as necessary. Consequently, the University is asking staff and students to run the unnecessary risk of contracting and spreading COVID-19, impacting not only our University communities but the wider communities of which we are a part. Given the rising transmission rates both locally and nationally, this is irresponsible. In addition, we note that staff have been asked at the last minute to develop new activities which may or may not go ahead depending on the local and national situation. This creates huge uncertainty for both students and staff, and exacerbates the workload problem which we have spoken to you about on a number of occasions.

Whilst we all wish that we were able to start the new academic year as we usually would, that is simply not possible. Our position both nationally and, following a General Meeting on 15th September, of the local branch, is that there should be no face to face teaching or student support at least over Semester 1, unless there is genuinely no other alternative (such as some practical classes). The amount of work that staff have put in to developing an online student experience over the summer has been exceptional, particularly given difficult working conditions, and the University should be confident, and speak confidently, about the quality of provision we can offer, whilst protecting the health and safety of our wider community. We request, therefore, 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 further request a review of the situation in December 2020 with a view to considering provision in Semester 2, and that the campus trades unions be fully involved in that review.

With best wishes

Chloe Wallace
Vice-president, on behalf of Leeds University UCU branch committee

This page was last updated on 18 September 2020

Motions passed at general meeting 15 September

UCU University of Leeds Branch Posted on by

At a general meeting on 15 September 2020 members voted to support the following motions:

Emergency motion 1 – On-line teaching: health & safety and jobs

This meeting notes:

  1. the call by our GS and iSAGE for all teaching to be held online
  2. UCU’s five tests
  3. pressures on all staff for face-to-face teaching
  4. that iSAGE/WHO believe social distancing, test, track and isolate and PPE are central in controlling pandemics
  5. a potential second wave of Covid-19 with high R-rates in Yorkshire/Humberside
  6. lives, health, safety and jobs should take priority over the financial ‘bottom line’
  7. The University sits on over £70 million of reserves which must be utilised if necessary to meet demands during this period.

This meeting requests:

Leeds UCU to campaign for and negotiate agreements on:

  1. no face-to-face teaching and student support in at least the first semester of 2020/21 and continued into the second semester (to be reviewed in December 2020) other than where there are no other options, e.g. some practical work
  2. all on-line teaching to be accessible
  3. provision of IT and safe quiet study spaces for all students and staff as required
  4. continuing with high levels of support and training for staff in online teaching, and ensuring that workload allocation models and other means of allocating work recognise the time needed to undertake this training
  5. no staff, casualised or permanent, to risk losing jobs if they do not deliver face-to-face teaching or support
  6. additional government funding to cover shortfalls and additional costs.

Emergency motion 3 – Local organising on return to campus in the context of Covid-19

This branch notes:

  • That the rates of Covid contagion are rising steadily across the Europe, the UK and Leeds
  • That there are currently problems and delays accessing tests and test results
  • That at this rate  of contagion and without mass testing, the WHO predicts a rise in the deaths in October and November 2020
  • That health and safety guidance has been developed on our campus in dialogue with the unions on improving existing measures, but inconsitency of approach as emerged across faculties, with some opting almost entirely for online teaching and others for a hybrid approach
  • That institutional pressure to offer some face to face teaching on the basis of a commercial argument affects different colleagues differently with regard to their teaching
  • That students’ experience will also be unequal as a result, especially for those unable to come back to campus
  • That the ‘Return to campus’ survey does not include individual health and safety measures
  • That local H&S reps are not consistently consulted on local arrangements for reopening building “in good time” as required by the law
  • That organising and negotiating in favour of online teaching have provided arguments to successfully retain fixed term staff in some faculties

This branch resolves:

  • that nobody should be forced to deliver teaching and other non-essential activities on campus in semester 1, and that this should be reviewed in semester 2.
  • that the union has clear messages and support especially for colleagues most isolated and precarious who may be coerced to teaching
  • to develop out our own conditions for f2f teaching at the branch level (e.g. conditions attached to the local r-number; room cleaning between classes; wearing of masks; availability of testing)
  • that the branch faciliates ongoing dialogue between local reps and the committee that is effective in influencing negotiation with management
  • that the branch actively contributes to the UCU developing of a national strategy such as walk outs or sick outs in the case COVID-19 rates increase and the University campus continues with the current plans of face to face teaching delivery

Emergency motion 2 – to submit to UCU special higher education sector conference 30 September

On-line teaching: health & safety and jobs

HESC notes:

  1. the call by our GS and iSAGE for all teaching to be held online
  2. UCU’s five tests
  3. pressures on all staff for face-to-face teaching
  4. that iSAGE/WHO believe social distancing, test, track and isolate and PPE are central in controlling pandemics
  5. a potential second wave of Covid-19

HESC requests:

branches and the national union campaign for and negotiate agreements on:

  1. no face-to-face teaching and student support in 2020/21 (reviewed in December) other than where there are no other options, e.g. some practical work
  2. all on-line teaching to be accessible
  3. provision of IT and safe quiet study spaces for all students and staff as required
  4. support and training for staff in online teaching
  5. no staff, casualised or permanent, to risk losing jobs if they do not teach face-to-face
  6. additional government funding to cover shortfalls and additional costs.

(150 words)

This page was last updated on 5 July 2021

General meeting will decide branch response to covid-19 increase

UCU University of Leeds Branch Posted on by

Emergency motions have been submitted to today’s general meeting in light of the increased covid-19 levels nationally and locally.

The motions suggest how we should respond as a branch locally, and how the union should respond nationally.

The meeting, which is for all members of the UCU University of Leeds branch, is 1pm – 2pm Tuesday 15 September.

Meeting link and updated agenda including the emergency motions is in an email sent to all members by branch administrator Alan Smith today.

[Edited 11.44 15 September as more than one motion now received]

This page was last updated on 15 September 2020

Latest news from Leeds UCU

UCU University of Leeds Branch Posted on by 
Text of email sent to branch members by branch president Ben Plumpton on 20 August 2020

Dear members,

I hope you are coping OK in these difficult times and that you and your families and friends are well.  There’s a lot to update you on  – so read on!  Also look out for a separate email with news about annual leave.  

Contents:
1. Redundancies and ending of fixed term contracts
2. Health and safety update
3. New university organisational change and redundancy policies
4. Return to campus questionnaire
5. Working from home costs
6. Could you offer to become a caseworker?
7. UCU levy
8. Elections to Senate
9. Fund the Future
10. Next Vice President of UCU
11. What next on our Four Fights dispute?
12. UCU webinars, and how to get involved

1. Redundancies and ending of fixed term contracts

Management told us they were intending to make 28 redundancies of staff employed for more than 4 years by the end of October, and a further 10 by the end of February.  Some of these have now been averted after extensions and redeployments, but we are urgently asking for discussions with management about the individuals remaining under threat in order to avoid redundancies.  In addition large numbers of staff on fixed term contracts are seeing their contracts come to an end, and although many were renewed earlier in the year, we are concerned that many of these colleagues are at serious risk now. We have been arguing that the university has a moral, academic, practical and financial duty to renew these contracts. Contract renewals have to be agreed by the Head of School/Faculty and approved by the University Executive Group, and we are supporting many members in arguing their cases. We gather that management are waiting to see how student admissions go, including international students, but we need to be ready in case of any proposals in the autumn for significant job cuts or pay cuts like some other universities are doing.  Let us know (ucu@leeds.ac.uk) if you need casework support on this.

2. Health and safety update

Neil Maughan, our Health and Safety Officer, has been in constant contact with university Health and Safety staff, along with his equivalents from the other campus trade unions, to ensure that appropriate measures are taken to protect those staff and students already on campus, and for those returning to campus. This includes for example re-opening of buildings, provision of face masks, social distancing guidance, use of office space, ‘track and trace’ and testing on campus.  We’ll update you more soon.

3. New university organisational change and redundancy policies

Branch officers have been in discussions for some time with HR and in negotiations with management at JCUU (the Joint Committee of the University and UCU) about these new policies. Some improvements have been made to the original proposals, but there were serious issues remaining unresolved. Management have nevertheless imposed these policies by passing them at University Council in July. Yesterday’s email from Internal Comms might imply that your union had agreed these policies – this is not the case, and nor are we happy with the approach of imposing rather than reaching agreement through negotiation. The imposed redundancy policy is at http://www.leeds.ac.uk/secretariat/ordinances.html#XXVI and the imposed organisational change policy is at https://hr.leeds.ac.uk/download/downloads/id/48/policy_for_implementing_an_organisational_restructure

4. Return to campus questionnaire

A questionnaire is being used to collect information so that local management can plan how the return to campus can be done whilst protecting those staff and their families who have health or other concerns that would make campus more risky for them. Managers are supposed to plan work so that staff without such concerns could be asked to return sooner than those at risk, so collecting this data will avoid guesses based on partial or inaccurate knowledge. If you are uneasy about sharing this information with your manager, perhaps worried about how the information might be used in future, you can request a confidential conversation with your local HR Manager instead of filling in the form. Then the HR manager will tell the Head of School/Service if you shouldn’t be among the first returning to campus, without giving all the details. We are asking for some improvements to this form, for example about the questions on caring responsibilities, where it says the expectation is that, if a family member can cover caring responsibilities you should say caring responsiblities have no impact on your return to campus. Families have been sharing and juggling care responsibilities under great pressure for many months, and it’s likely that other family members are also employed so wouldn’t be able to take over caring. The form should also include issues relevant to migrant staff. 

5. Working from home costs

We are still trying to get management to compensate staff for additional costs of working from home, particularly where these costs are significant. And this will become more important once heating costs increase. Watch out for updates on this.

6. Could you offer to become a caseworker?

There are a lot of members seeking union support at the moment, and our existing caseworkers are mostly at full capacity, so this sadly often means a delay in getting a caseworker. UCU HQ have offered to put on a special online casework course for us, if 15 members want to do it. The course will taught over 3 weeks with 3 course meetings and some pre-course work, dates and times to be confirmed. Going on the course doesn’t commit you to becoming a caseworker, it would be suitable for anyone thinking they might be interested and wanting to know more. Email ucu@leeds.ac.uk if this could be you!

7. UCU levy

You’ll remember that UCU nationally announced a levy of members to replenish the Fighting Fund which provides financial support to members taking strike action. This branch and many others wanted to avoid lower paid members being charged the levy. After donations from branches (Leeds gave £15,000 as agreed at the last branch General Meeting) and individual members, those earning under £20,000 will now be exempt from the levy. Our branch also agreed to cover the levy for any members earning under £30,000 or who are in particular difficulty and who request it.  To request this, once the levy has been taken from your account, please email ucu@leeds.ac.uk with the subject “Levy request”, including a screenshot of your bank statement showing the levy and your bank details. Some generous members offered to pay the levy for low paid members – if this was you, thank you very much but that’s not now needed, perhaps you could donate to the national Fighting Fund? (https://www.ucu.org.uk/fightingfund) 

8. Elections to Senate

An election has just been announced for faculty-specific places for next year. We’d encourage members to stand – it’s important for there to be independent voices on Senate able to raise issues important to staff. Sadly, there are often unfilled places which is a shame for democracy. If you are considering standing and would like a chat about what it’s like, email ucu@leeds.ac.uk and we’ll put you in touch with a newish senator. General info about Senate is at http://www.leeds.ac.uk/secretariat/senate.html  And of course, once voting starts (electronically), please use your vote.NB Academic-related staff who aren’t in a faculty need to ‘affiliate’ themselves to a faculty for the purpose of these elections. To do this, email Helen Pickersgill in the Secretariat (h.j.pickersgill@adm.leeds.ac.uk) specifying which faculty you want to be affiliated to.

9. Fund the Future

You will have seen emails from Jo Grady, the UCU General Secretary, about UCU’s Fund the Future campaign, to get the government to sensibly fund post-16 education. Please help this campaign by writing to your MP, which is easy to do using the online tool at https://fundthefuture.org.uk/your-mp/

10. Next Vice President of UCU

Don’t forget to vote in this UCU election! The elected Vice President will become President in 2023-24. There is also an election for an LGBT+ represenative.  Voting papers should have arrived in the post to your home address a while ago – if you can’t find them, get a replacement at https://www.ucu.org.uk/election-ballot-request. The candidates’ statements are at https://www.ucu.org.uk/cvs-elections, also with a video hustings where you can hear about the candidates’ priorities for UCU and watch them answering questions from members. Deadline for voting is 15th September.

11. What next on our Four Fights dispute?

The result of the consultative ballot on whether to accept the employers’ ‘final offer’ was to reject it. The union needs to decide what to do next, and a special online Higher Education Sector Conference on this has been called for 30th September. We will have our first branch General Meeting of the academic year earlier than usual, on Tuesday 15th September, in order to elect delegates and agree any motions the branch wants to submit to that conference. Please put the date in your diary now!

12. UCU webinars, and how to get involved

Last but by no means least, UCU has been holding some excellent online webinars to discuss key issues for the union. These are recorded and can be watched via UCU’s YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQVEcHoeCPvfwlv_Hof1TeA  The one on supporting migrant staff features our branch Equality Officer, Dima Chami, and committee member Laura Loyola-Hernandez, who were involved in setting up UCU’s Migrant Members’ Standing Committee. Watch these, be inspired, and contact ucu@leeds.ac.uk to join one of our branch working groups! (Groups include Equality, Anti-casualisation, Workloads, Disability, Recruitment & Organising, Action Group, University Finance, Climate & Ecological Emergency).  Want to do something for the union but don’t have much time?  Talk to a colleague and ask them to join UCU – the more members we have, the stronger we will be and the more able to support you and to challenge/prevent future management appallingness.

Thank you for reading all this, thank you for everything you do for the union, and do get in touch if you have any concerns or queries (email ucu@leeds.ac.uk for support).

I hope you have some good times over the (rest of the) summer, and I look forward to seeing you at the next UCU General Meeting on 15th September.

In solidarity,

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

This page was last updated on 26 August 2020