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.

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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