LeedsUCU podcast episode 6: branch news, 27 March 2024
In today’s episode (recorded 27 March): pay and grading review, ways of working, casework, management training, joining the union before problems arise, gender, ethnicity and disability pay gaps, flexible working, the next general meeting, amending motions on the UCU congress agenda, and the AGM in May, getting involved as a UCU department equality rep, department rep, branch committee member or caseworker.
(No Rachel today – we really should have mentioned that in the recording!)
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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 the 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
We’re here to be a friendly voice from the UCU University of Leeds branch to keep you better in 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.
Alan
So today we’re joined by Aisha Walker, president of the UCU University of Leeds branch, to give us the latest news. So I think first up is the pay in grading review. We’ve had some talks on that, haven’t we?
Aisha
Hi Alan. Yes, we’ve had another meeting about the pay and grading review, which involves all three unions. The university has been doing some benchmarking to look at where grades sit on the pay spine in other universities, and actually that’s really interesting because universities also have different grades for the same roles. So a senior lecturer or an associate professor in Leeds is a Grade 9, but they’re not necessarily a Grade 9 in some other universities, even though they may be paid the same as a Grade 9 at Leeds. I have to say the review is progressing slowly. We will be having more meetings and I’ll try to keep you updated, but it is very slow and I think that all of us, all three unions, would like to see it moving more quickly.
Alan
Thanks. And so I understand that the gender, ethnicity and disability pay gaps were published by the university recently. Have we had a chance to look at those in detail?
Aisha
We have looked at them. In some areas, the university is lacking data, and that’s because, a lot of the data, it’s voluntary to provide it, so you don’t have to declare your ethnicity or declare a disability. So the data is partial. The university is saying that there is some improvement and I think possibly there is, but we have a lot of concerns really about the gap, the jump between Grade 7 and Grade 8, and partly that’s down to the difficulty that professional staff have in getting promotions. So this is something that we’re taking up with the university. The university is demanding more professional skills of its academic related professional staff. There are professional staff involved in writing papers, for example, or writing grant applications. People who are considered professional rather than academic staff who are involved in teaching, and these are things that would enable you to apply for a promotion as an academic staff member, but not as a professional staff member and we think that this is something that really needs to be addressed and it would make a significant improvement in the pay gaps, particularly the gender pay gap, because there are more women at grade 7. It’s harder for women, it seems, to get up to grade 8. And in fact something else that we’ve been looking at is the research EDI Fund, which is a new initiative by the university to provide some additional funding for people from minoritized backgrounds or disadvantaged backgrounds in some way at grade 8 and 9 to help boost research careers, to move people into grade nine, grade 10. So do have a lookout for that. If you fall into that category, you know, apply for it, take it. But again, we are concerned about, at grade 7, researchers. We have a lot of casualized researchers, people on fixed term – research fellows – on fixed term contracts who wouldn’t be eligible to apply for this funding. And really, if you’re going to try and boost minority ethnic staff or women or staff with disabilities at grade 10, you need to be able to pull people in at grade 7 to start their research careers in order to be able to develop those careers, so we would like the university to reconsider the decision to limit it to grade 8 and 9.
Alan
Thanks, Asha. And on the pay gaps, if members of the branch have got specific ideas about things that they’re aware of, that they think are exacerbating the pay gaps or preventing those pay gaps shrinking, should they … ? I know a lot of departments have a UCU equality rep – not all do – but the branch has an equality officer – who should members get in touch with if they’ve got specific ideas as to what they think the university should be doing better.
Aisha
You can talk to your equality rep, if you have one, if you don’t have one, how about considering becoming equality rep for your area? We need more. All equality reps are being invited to join the Equalities Working group and our Equalities Officer is Jenny Rivas Perez. So you could contact Jenny directly or you could e-mail ucu@leeds.ac.uk and we can pass it on to Jenny, but Jenny is actively looking at this issue and she is really, really good with the data.
Alan
Thanks, Asha. And one of the other things that we’ve been talking with HR about recently is case management – individual casework – and obviously HR have one perspective on that, the union has a slightly different perspective on that, but where are we with those?
Aisha
I think the answer is, obviously the university has – it does have – too many cases. And that’s partly because there are some really poor practises in the university. One thing that we have been pressing for and continue to press for is better training for managers, because at the moment people can step up into management roles and there’s no requirement for them to undertake training in things like GDPR or discrimination – avoiding discrimination, obviously! – so I think that better management training might help to alleviate the number of cases. One thing that’s a real concern is the length of time that some cases are taking. And this is due on our side to. The length of time it takes to wait for a case worker, we are looking out for more caseworkers. If you’re interested in doing this, please contact us on same e-mail address ucu@leeds.ac.uk. UCU provides training for caseworkers. So, if you’re interested in taking up casework, please get in touch. We don’t expect people to do case work in their own area. In fact, we ask them to do case work outside their own area, so there’s no risk of conflict of interest. So, yeah, casework numbers do continue to be a concern. And as I said, better management training would help to reduce the numbers. The university measures its casework numbers in a slightly different way, because at the moment they only count things that have made it to some kind of formal stage, whereas we are also looking at things that that may be resolved without becoming a formal a formal matter.
Alan
So on training for managers, as I understand it, ODPL do have a lot of courses available to managers, which presumably we encourage people to go on, but is the issue that they’re not required to go on them or is there not sufficient incentive for them to go on them?
Aisha
Go on them. Yeah. If you are stepping into a management role. If you’re becoming ahead of your area ahead of school or your or something like a director of student education or you’re stepping into a professional leadership role please do the training, if you’re offered it, but I think what happens is that, you know when people take on a new role, they are very busy. It’s very intense. I do understand that. And in fact, I understand it very well, having this year taken on the role of being branch present. But there’s no requirement from the university for people to do the training, and I think that’s the problem is that it’s not, it’s not being enforced. So the training is there and the training will be really useful and it’ll be really good quality. But if you don’t require people to take it, it’ll always be something that they could do, you know, next month, next term, next year, when they feel they’ve got more time to do it. And of course that never happens.
Alan
Yeah. So a lot of it comes back to workloads and expectations of people in those roles.
Aisha
Yes, workloads continue to be a problem. We are still wrangling with the university over the reduction in the working year from1650 to 1635 hours because of the extra holidays we’ve been given, and that reduction is really welcome, but for academic colleagues, that has not been reflected in the workload model and people can still be workloaded to 1650 hours. We know, we do understand that, you know, workload models are somewhat fictional because it’s notional hours. But we do think that the number of hours, but people are asked to work should match the number of hours that they have available to do the work in. And a lot of people, we know, are over workload anyway and this is something that needs to be tackled across the university and we also need to be sure that professional staff, our ARPS colleagues, are not being asked to do more work than they can reasonably handle in the time that’s available. And it’s more difficult there because of course they don’t have a spreadsheet like academic colleagues do.
Alan
So, also, we should probably say on, on casework that we do occasionally have an issue where somebody will come to us to come to the union and say management want to invite me to a formal meeting about something, I haven’t joined the union, can I get some help? And we have to say no. Which is awful. So, you know, if you, if you’re listening, please do encourage all of your colleagues to join the union, now. You know, you want to join it as soon as you start a new job, because the union is about a collective supporting each other and, you’ve got to be a member of the union to get support from the union. Don’t leave it until you’ve got a problem.
Aisha
I can’t – I don’t think we can emphasise that enough, Alan. The union is really about collective bargaining and the fact that we are stronger together than we are individually. We do also provide support, but we’re not just an insurance policy. However, like an insurance policy, it’s no good buying the insurance after you’ve had the fire. You know, you need to have it in place. The union supports its members. If you’re not a member and you have a problem, then we can provide informal advice from a case worker. But that’s as far as we can go. We can’t usually provide support in meetings or representation. So if you’re not a member, or if you have colleagues who are not members, if you’re not a member, join now, if you have colleagues who are not members, encourage them to join, because together we are much stronger than we are when we’re trying to deal with things individually.
Alan
Thanks, Aisha. So one of the other – we’ve talked about this before, we’ve talked about it repeatedly – but ways of working and hot desking is still kind of trundling along because we’re still hearing of people saying that they’ve been told that they have to come in three days a week.
Aisha
Yeah, we know that there are some colleagues who have received emails from their managers saying that they have to be in three days a week. Every time we talk about this with HR, and we’ve done that a lot, the reply is consistent that this is not a university mandate. There is an expectation of being on campus more often than not, but the actual amount of time that you spend on campus should be based on the needs of the activities that you have to do. You know, what’s the work that you’re doing? If you’re teaching in person, you’ve got to be on campus. If you’re doing stuff that’s student facing or public facing, or, you know, where you have to be there with your colleagues in person, then obviously you have to be on campus, but it also has to take into consideration the resources that you have in your area, the amount of space you’ve got available, you know, managers shouldn’t be telling people to come in if there’s nowhere for them to work, or if they’re just going to spend the day doing desk based work and teams meetings and it and the member of staff feels they’ll be able to do that more easily at home. So it’s not a mandate and it should be something that’s decided really by managers working with individuals. And if you are getting problems with this then obviously get in touch with us so that we know we can take that back to – the more specific information we have, the easier it is for us to go back to HR and say, “Look, you’re saying this, but in that area management are saying that.” We also have continued concerns about the use of shared space and hot desking. So again, if this is affecting you, please get in touch. We’re looking at the Worsley project, the project in the Worsley Building, one of our reps will be doing a walk round to see how that space is being developed. We have continued to raise questions about things like accessibility, about ergonomic resources where people have special things like foot rests or special keyboards, where we have questions about things like where do you store your stuff. You know, if you and if you have books, where do you put your books so. If you’re having problems in this area or you’ve got concerns, please get in touch with us.
Alan
So, and, as with any other sort of getting in touch things, if it’s a collective issue, if it’s something which is affecting everyone where you work, the best person to speak to in the first instance is your department rep – there’s a list of department reps on the branch website, which is leedsucu.org.uk. Hopefully you would know who your department rep is, but if you don’t it will be on there. But if it’s something which is affecting you individually, then the best thing to do is contact ucu@leeds.ac.uk — there’s alternative ways to contact on the branch website if e-mail is not for you — and we can then arrange a case worker for you to support you with that individually.
Aisha
Just to note, if you’re, if you’re contacting your local rep, that’s not because your local rep should talk to your manager. We don’t expect, in fact, local reps aren’t empowered to negotiate with your head of area or head of school or head of service or whatever. But we have regular reps meetings where reps bring the issues that are happening in their own areas and we can see whether there are collective issues that we need to take up with management. So if you are a rep and somebody comes to you with a problem like, you know, they’ve been told they’ve got to spend three days a week on campus, don’t take it to your head of school, bring it to the reps meeting or you know, contact, post a message on the reps e-mail list to see if anybody else is getting the same problem. But don’t take it up directly with your head of school or service. We don’t expect you to do that.
Alan
And so last in this section flexible working, there was some sort of early discussions around that with HR, wasn’t there?
Aisha
Yes, the flexible working policy is being revised and we are really, really pleased to see that unions are being involved from the beginning of working on that policy. This hasn’t always been the case, so we’re delighted that this is happening with the flexible working policy. So one of the things that we have concerns about is if you change your working pattern or your working hours, it can affect things like the way your leave is calculated or your pension as well as, obviously, you know, if you reduce your or increase your hours, your pay will change, and we’re not sure that people are always given sufficient information about this, so that’s one of the concerns that we have. We also need to make sure that decisions about flexible working are made fairly and transparently, so if you have any comments or concerns about the flexible working policy, please get in touch with us because we will be talking more with the university about revising this policy.
Alan
So next we want to talk about what’s coming up for members of the branch. So the next scheduled ordinary general meeting, that’s the meeting for all members of the branch is Monday the 29th of April 12:45 till 2:00 PM. Any member of the branch can submit motions to that. It can be rule change motions, it can be motions about anything that’s relevant to the members of the branch. The deadline for motions is 12:00 PM on Tuesday the 16th of April. Now, the timing of that meeting is, it’s aimed particularly because we now, as of today, I think, have the agenda for UCU Congress 2024. So we know what motions are going to be at Congress. Now, branches can submit amendments to motions. So if you want to, if you want this branch to propose an amendment to a motion that’s on the Congress agenda, you can bring it to that meeting. So that again, the deadline for that is Tuesday the 16th of April. And following that, the next scheduled meeting is the annual general meeting. Do you want to talk a little bit about that, Aisha?
Aisha
Certainly, yes. So obviously the annual general meeting is the time that the committee formally reports back to the branch. So, you know, we’ll have the Treasurer’s report, we’ll have a report from the President about our activities over the year, but it’s also the time when we elect our officers and committee for the forthcoming year. All officer and committee posts are elected every year so now is a really good time to start thinking about whether or not you want to join the committee. We really, really like to have diverse representation on the committee. If you want to find out more about being a committee member, or if you would like to consider taking an officer role, then please have a word with anybody who’s currently on the committee. We know that there will be some officers standing down. And so. But any officer will be happy to talk to you if you’re interested in standing for a role. Shortly after the after the AGM, we will also be having the area rep elections. All rep posts are elected every two years, so, again, now is a really good time to start thinking about whether you would like — whether if you’re a Rep, do you want to stand again for the next two years? — And if you’re not currently a Rep have a good think about whether or not you might want to do that. It is actually really interesting work, as is case work. And it means that issues from your area can be brought to the attention of officers and to the attention of the university.
Alan
So the AGM is Thursday the 16th of May. That’s 12:45 till 2:00 PM. If you want to stand for a committee position. We’ll send an e-mail around with more details about how to do this, but you need 2 colleagues to nominate you. The deadline for nominations is the day before the AGM. That’s 15th of May.
Aisha
And just to note, you don’t need more than two colleagues, so you don’t have to pester everybody that you know!
Alan
No, please only get 2 colleagues! because I’m the one who has to collate them all. And I don’t want any more than two. So what else have we got?
Aisha
We’ve got some social events
Alan
We have!
Aisha
So there are drop in lunches, bring your own lunch in the Ziff, social space. There’s one on Wednesday the 17th of April from 1pm till 2pm. So it’s where the cafe used to be in the Ziff building. And then there’s a couple of after work socials at the Library pub. One’s on Friday the 5th of April, and one’s on Friday the 3rd of May. They’re both from 5pm and you can get food in the library pub so. And drink, obviously.
Alan
Yeah, that’s, to be clear, we’re not getting you food. You can get food. So I think that’s all we’ve got. So have you got any final thoughts for today’s podcast?
Aisha
Well, one thing I’ve noticed today is how quiet it is on campus as we go into the into the vacation period. So we’ve got a long weekend coming up. So and I know a lot of colleagues will also be taking annual leave either now or in the week after the long weekend, so please have a good break. Don’t work! Make sure you take your time off. It’s a time of a lot of celebrations we’ve just had Purim, so I hope that any Jewish colleagues celebrating had fun chasing Haman out of the temple. And Nowruz, so happy Nowruz to any colleagues from Iran who celebrate. I’d like to wish everybody celebrating Easter a happy Easter. And before I speak to you again, we’ll have had Eid. So I hope that Muslim colleagues are having a truly blessed Ramadan. And I wish you all Eid Mubarak. So that’s all. Have a good break. Don’t work. See you in a couple of weeks.
Alan
Thank you, Aisha, and thank you for bringing us the branch news. See you soon.
Rachel
That’s all for today’s Leeds UCU 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. 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 email our branch officers 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 29 March 2024