In today’s episode (recorded 8 July): pay and grading review offer, workload, the general election, and remembering Jonathan Dean

With Aisha Walker, Rachel Walls and Alan Smith.

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Episode links

https://www.leedsucu.org.uk/support-and-benefits/local-industrial-action-hardship-fund/

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Transcript

Intro

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 Aisha worker, president of University of Leeds branch of UCU, to give us the latest news today. Hi Aisha.

Aisha

Hi, Rachel. Hi Alan.

Alan

Hi Aisha

Rachel

Good to see you both well. Quite a lot’s been happening recently. There’s been some emails this week about the pay and grading. Ohh, it was last week actually, so they’re just running into one another and we’ve had some emails last week about the pay and grading review with the university. So what’s been going on there?

Aisha

Well, this is really exciting because finally, after you know several months of negotiations, we can actually talk about the pay and grading review because I’ve been coming into the podcast studio for how many months now and Alan or Rachel, you’ve been asking me about the pay and grading and I’ve been saying it’s been going really well, but I can’t say. anything. And now you’ve seen the information from the university. You’ve seen the e-mail from us. And you know that what’s going to happen basically is that anybody in grade 2 to 9, everybody in grade 2 to 9 is going to bit of get a bit of a boost in your pay packet in August of this year. And then there’s going to be more to come next year. I’m not going to go into all of the changes right now, but, I think the two really important things to note, apart from more money, which is, obviously that’s a good thing, is that this has come about because of our industrial action. So as I said before, we stood down the MAB, the marking and assessment boycott, in 2022 on the promise that the university would carry out a review of where the grades sit on the pay spine. And that has now happened, and it’s involved all three unions we have worked together, the three of us and we have pushed the university. The university has made significant changes to some of its proposals. For example the time scale they’ve really brought that forward at the insistence of the unions. So it’s really, really good that we finally got a response to this and it’s what we want because it is going to be a pay boost for everybody in grades 2 to 9. But it’s you really you the members that we have to thank for it because it’s your work, it’s your sacrifice. And the talks have been really constructive. And as I say, university management has listened to our concerns and they have made changes in response to our concerns and that’s why we have reached this point. So yes, so it is great news and hopefully we will get the final sign off next week if it’s approved by all three of the trades unions.

Rachel

Great.

Aisha

Right. So it is important that we are able to approve it.

Rachel

Absolutely yes. Thanks to all the members of all three unions. OK, well, that’s … We look forward to hearing more about that, how that goes.

Aisha

Yeah, I think the university is going to put out more information to help people understand exactly how it’s going to affect you individually. OK, we have asked for a calculator so that you can work it out because there are some other changes such as changing the increment date so over the next year everybody will get their increment at the normal time and then their next increment will be in August of 2025. So that’s going to make that the impact of that’s going to be different for different people. So we have asked for a calculator and I think the university will also give us some worked examples again so that you can see how it might affect you.

Rachel

OK. Well, thanks for the. Yeah, the information and the update. And yeah, that sounds useful to have a calculator.

Aisha

Yeah, and thanks to all the Members who came to the meeting on the 11th of July.

Rachel

So we are turning our attention to workload now and, yeah, what’s been going on with workloads?

Aisha

Can I give a big sigh at this point? Because academic colleagues are getting their workloads for the next academic year and we are still seeing people being workloaded to 1650 hours. We’ve seen examples of people being told they’ve got 25 days leave instead of the 26 that we now have. And of course, the 1650 hours doesn’t take into account the extra day of leave and it doesn’t take into account the extra closure days. So,if this is happening to you, please contact your rep or ucu@leeds.ac.uk. We keep raising this with management that people are now being officially workloaded, so it’s not just that the nominal hours are fictional – because we know that the workload doesn’t match what you actually do, we know that if you’re given X number of PGR supervision hours for an example, you’re almost certainly going to be spending twice that much time reading their work and, you know, talking to them and supporting them – but it should at least add up nominally to the number of hours in the working year. Which is now around 1635, not 1650. So if you’re still being workloaded to 1650 with actual work, please do let us know.

Rachel

OK. And you can e-mail ucu@leeds.ac.uk if you have concerns about that.

Alan

So, next up since we last met, there has been a general election which has resulted in a change of government. I imagine it’s early days yet, but do we have any idea how things are going to change?

Aisha

Well, it’s really exciting actually. Of course, UCU is not affiliated to any political party. So we don’t have that that relationship with any specific political party, but we are looking forward to seeing what changes there are in relation to workers’ rights. So the incoming government has promised changes to workers’ rights, to boost workers’ rights to give people additional rights. And I think what we’re hoping for, but I don’t know if it’s going to happen, is that some of the worst trade union legislation will be repealed. So there’s been some really challenging legislation over the past 14 years, there’s the minimum service levels which have only just come in, but which could potentially affect us because we work in education, where if there’s a strike, management has the power to nominate people who can’t strike. Hopefully that will be repealed. I also would like to see a repeal of the 2016 Act, which puts onerous conditions on strike ballots. Firstly, that it has to be conducted by post, it can’t be done online, and, nowadays, when so much is online and the postal service is has sadly been deteriorating under the previous government – I mean that might change. And the second thing is that at least 50% of your membership have to take part in the ballot by post, and that’s a very onerous condition and it’s very hard for unions to make that threshold. We have achieved it several times and generally in Leeds we have succeeded in meeting that threshold, so well done Leeds members, but it is an onerous condition and it does mean that that unions where there’s a strike vote that’s very strongly in favour of strike, maybe fails simply because less than 50% of the membership actually got their votes posted on time, and this is a condition that doesn’t apply to any other kind of vote. It doesn’t apply to parliamentary votes, for example, we don’t have to have 50% of MPs taking part in a vote for a piece of legislation to pass. It doesn’t apply to elections. It only applies to union strike ballots. So maybe that will go. I hope so.

Alan

Well, we look forward to seeing what happens with that. And finally, we were all very sad to learn of the death of Jonathan Dean, who for a long time was the UCU department rep for the School of Politics and International Studies.

Aisha

Yeah, this is really it’s shocking and it’s really sad. Jonathan died suddenly in late May. And he was a UCU department rep for something like 10 years. I think he was a really valued colleague, but also a really valued member of our rep team. He did a great job representing his department, but also representing UCU to the school, encouraging people to join the union, pointing out the value of the union. And he was a regular on our picket line. So he’s going to be missed. He’s going to be missed by his colleagues and also by us as a union. We are we are less without him. And that’s really sad. I wasn’t unfortunately able to go to the memorial event on Monday, because I was away. But I hope that the people there were able to really remember Jonathan, to celebrate his memory and to enjoy a bit of memorial bird watching. Which is very much in keeping with the person that he was. He asked that any memorial donations be made to Leeds UCU and it’s really appropriate for them to go into the hardship fund. Actually, our hardship fund is, sadly, depleted after all of our strike action and our marking and assessment boycotts, so it’s really powerful actually, that anything in Jonathan’s memory will be going to support colleagues if we have to take strike action again in the future.

Alan

OK. Thank you, Aisha. And that’s all for today. So thank you for bringing us the branch news.

Aisha

Thank you.

Rachel

Thank you.

[Brief music]

Outro

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 19 July 2024