** It’s UCU department rep elections time! ** (formal notice of elections)
It’s department rep election time for 2024 – 2026!
The roles and boundaries have changed for this electoral period, with the aim of members electing teams of reps to work together in their area. Find out all about the changes below.
Nominations (two) and confirmations of acceptance must be received by ucu@leeds.ac.uk by Thursday 13 June.
Changes to the available roles and boundaries for 2024 – 2026
The roles and boundaries have changed for this electoral period, with the aim of members electing teams of reps to work together in their area.
This page lists the number of department reps and health and safety reps you can elect in your area.
Instead of nominating for particular department rep roles or areas of focus (anti-casualisation, postgraduate, equality) these can be agreed later between the department reps elected. (Anyone taking a particular role is also still a general department rep.) This should give reps more flexibility if someone moves mid-term.
In a large department, if a rep wants, we could list a specific work area to help members to find them and to decide who might best understand their issue. For example, a department rep for the School of Languages, Cultures and Societies might want to be listed with “(French)” after their name, but they would still be a rep for the whole school.
The number listed for health and safety reps includes workload reps. (You can specify “workload rep” or “health and safety rep” in your nominations if you wish but a health and safety reps can change focus to being a workload rep and vice versa, subject to appointment by the health and safety officer and appropriate training.)
The role of a UCU department rep
Members elect UCU department reps for our area of the university every two years (even years, starting in 2022), shortly after the Annual General Meeting. The committee will also arrange by-elections in the off-years where there are vacancies. Branch rules about the election of department reps
A network of department reps across the university is crucial for maintaining and increasing the strength of the union and ensuring the branch committee learns about problems in different areas.
UCU department reps are a point of contact for union members in that school, department, service or area, and they alert the branch committee to issues concerning members in their area.
Department reps are not always caseworkers and are not expected to represent members in their area with individual problems (although many department reps are caseworkers, supporting members in other departments). Department reps don’t negotiate with local management on behalf of the union – all consultation and negotiation with UCU is done centrally by the negotiating team.
Department reps will try to welcome new staff and make sure they know about the union.
Department rep roles / areas of focus
In a large department, some of the department reps might want to also focus on particular aspects. This can be decided after the elections. These roles are:
UCU department anti-casualisation rep
Focussing on issues affecting members who are casualised: members on fixed-term or fixed-funded contracts and members who are hourly paid.
UCU department postgraduate rep
Focussing on issues affecting postgraduate students who teach or do other paid academic or academic-related (professional and managerial) work for the university.
UCU department equality rep
Focussing on issues of inequality and discrimination affecting members in the department.
UCU department workloads rep
Workloads reps are health and safety reps with a focus on workloads.
UCU department health and safety rep
Focussing on health, safety and wellbeing issues in the department
Who would be a good UCU department rep?
Try to think who would be the best person or people to be a UCU rep for your department. Challenge any stereotype you have of what union reps are like, and bear in mind that while someone who is more vocal at raising problems might be a good rep it might just be that they are already in a relatively more privileged situation so feel more able to complain. A good union rep will often be someone that colleagues have confidence in, whose judgement they trust, and who is a good listener.
You can find out more about the roles of UCU reps at ucu.org.uk/rep
Standing for election as UCU department rep
The deadline for nominations in Thursday 13 June.
To nominate someone, simply email ucu@leeds.ac.uk, ideally include the word “nomination” in the email subject, saying, for example:
Dear UCU branch administrator
I wish to nominate Maria García Sánchez for UCU department rep for the School of Design
Yours faithfully
James Smith
Each candidate needs two nominations by the deadline and to have confirmed by the deadline that they are willing to stand to be eligible for election. Nominations normally have to be from UCU members in the same department, but exceptions can be made for very small departments.
For this year’s elections you only need to specify if you are nominating someone as a “department rep” or a “department health and safety rep”. The other roles can be sorted out between the reps later. (But, for example, in a large department you might want to nominate at least one person who is a postgraduate student who teaches, so that you can have a postgraduate rep.)
If you have any questions about the department definitions or exceptions for nominations for small departments, contact me or branch membership officer Emily Haikney.
Workload and training
University of Leeds has a historically not-great record in ensuring staff have sufficient time off for trade union work, insisting it is part of ‘citizenship’ for most union reps whose workloads are calculated that way. Discussions are ongoing to try to improve the situation so that more reps have workloaded time off (or equivalent) in addition to citizenship. If you have any questions about this please contact the branch honorary secretary or branch president.
UCU provides training for UCU reps ucu.org.uk/training, and support and mentoring from more experienced union reps.
This page was last updated on 23 May 2024