Your industrial action ballot paper should have arrived shortly after 16 January 2019. It’s vital for our union democracy that you use your vote. Don’t be silenced.

The vote has to be done by post because the government made it illegal to run industrial action ballots online

Why are we balloting again?

Last October Leeds members voted clearly to strike – 70% in favour – over casualisation, gender equality, workload and fair pay. The turnout locally was 49%. It was the highest national turnout on a pay ballot in UCU’s history. The new anti-trade union law stopped us from striking.

We think members should decide, not the government. We’re re-balloting to exceed the 50% legal threshold so your decision counts.

Please use your vote – democracy is important

We need to know what the whole membership thinks about taking action, so please vote whatever your view.
To help us get the turnout needed for our votes to count, please tell UCU when you’ve voted.

The ballot is open until midday Friday 22nd February.

We urge all members to vote Yes to strike and Yes to action short of a strike including a marking boycott.

Requesting replacement ballot paper

If you haven’t received your ballot paper you can request a new one online here. New members should receive one automatically.

We’re asking the employers to work with us nationally to:

• Tackle the scandal of casualisation (e.g. 65% of Leeds research staff and 36% of teaching only staff are on fixed-term contracts)
• Recognise and address excessive workloads
• Real action on the gender pay gap (22.5% at Leeds)
• A fair real-terms pay rise (2% doesn’t even cover inflation)

Questions about the dispute?

You can find out more about the dispute in our FAQs on this website, at ucu.org.uk, and in emails from local or national UCU reps, and by talking to your UCU department rep. You can also follow us on Twitter @leedsucu.

Want a UCU poster to put on your door/window/noticeboard?

We’d love you to get our posters seen on campus – there are two versions which you can download and print – here and here.

New colleagues who aren’t UCU members?

Please help us to to keep this branch of UCU strong by encouraging new colleagues to join the union at ucu.org.uk/join.

Postgrads who teach can join the union for free: ucu.org.uk/free 

Keep your details up-to-date

Need to update your details? Use ‘My UCU’ on ucu.org.uk (top of that page)

On long-term leave so not able to strike? Please email ucu@leeds.ac.uk to let us know. (This is important).

This page was last updated on 26 February 2019