Proposed minutes of the annual general meeting, to be confirmed by subsequent AGM.

Thursday 24 May, 3.45pm – 5pm, Workshop Theatre

1. Minutes of AGM 24 May 2017

Agreed

• Minutes of recent general meetings

Minutes of general meetings held 15 February and 16 April, and emergency general meetings held 27 March, 4 April and 24 April were agreed.

• Matters arising

Voted to take the motion “Lost confidence in the democratic conduct of UCU national leadership”, which was remitted to the committee by the emergency general meeting on 5 April, at the AGM.

Lost confidence in the democratic conduct of UCU national leadership

This branch has lost confidence in the democratic conduct of the UCU national leadership.

The following actions are demonstrative of our concerns:

• On 28th March 2018, in the meeting of UCU branch representatives, the chair refused repeatedly to allow delegates to vote on whether to support an e-ballot; thereby preventing a quantitative determination of the collective preference of the attending branches.
• On 28th March 2018, in the meeting of the UCU Higher Education Committee (HEC), the General Secretary providing a ‘confidential’ letter from the Chief Executive of UCU (Alastair Jarvis) without providing adequate time for members to review and consult on the implications.
• On 28th March 2018, in the same meeting of the UCU HEC, the chair (UCU Vice President) then called members to a vote on a motion to conduct an e-ballot on this new ‘proposal’, and judged that all other motions fell when this motion passed. This prevented HEC delegates from presenting or discussing the nuanced ‘revise and resubmit’ preferences of their constituents.
• On 28th March 2018, in the subsequent UCU press release, the General Secretary  misrepresented the views of UCU branch delegates by stating that the ‘majority of branches… indicated that they wished the proposal to go to a members’ consultation’. This conflicts with individual accounts of the meeting and is quantitatively impossible to declare, since no vote was permitted in the prior branch meeting.
• On 4th April 2018, the General Secretary included partial and misrepresentative material directly in the e-ballot sent to members to vote on the 23rd March UUK proposal. In this material, a ‘no’ vote was inappropriately conflated with demands for a ‘no detriment’ clause and no-voters were forcefully warned to ‘commit to taking much more strike action in May and June and then again in the autumn’.

The motion was carried unanimously

Agreed unanimously that delegates should support the University of Sheffield branch in their challenge to the UCU congress business committee (CBC) that their motion on union democracy is out of order.

Discussion about mandating or steering delegates on motions around the issues of loss of confidence, of no confidence and of censure. Consensus was not to mandate delegates but to trust them and that their conscience should be guided by what the branch as voted on but that delegates should report back.

• President’s report

An unprecedented year with two major disputes in one academic year, both were well supported and built membership and activism. Our teach outs model taken up across the country. We’ve had major political support and improved engagement with students. Big increase in membership and a refresh in our reps structure. I’m proud to be part of the Leeds UCU community.

On USS pensions, we’ll see what comes out of the joint evaluation panel – if we need to take more action. UCU has a special higher education conference on this on 21 June.

We’ve seen a renewed focus on university governance, and intersecting issues of casualisation, equality, gender pay. We’ve seen increasing postgraduate involvement in the union. We’re arranging an anticasualisation roadshow for October. We have a migration legal briefing tomorrow.

Issues around IT and Health and Safety restructures. On IT, the people on grade 8 will stay on grade 8. Some issues around management trying to use performance management to drive them down. We could have done more to push the university – learned lessons. We’ve been meeting with IT managers weekly to try to address issues. HR are recommending we look again at how we do reorganisations.

We’re still in dispute with the university over the university statutes. We expect the status quo ante to apply. We are corresponding with national UCU. University senior management plan to write to everyone tomorrow to say they will implement the new statutes in January.

• Appointment of auditors for 2018-2019

Stefan Kesting appointed

• Appointment of tellers

Tellers were Michelle Schneider and Dan Hope.

• Election of committee for 2018-2019 academic year
  • President

Vicky Blake elected unopposed

• Vice-president

Tim Goodall elected unopposed

• Treasurer

Nigel Bubb elected unopposed

• Honorary secretary

Jonathan Saha elected unopposed

• Membership officer

Ben Plumpton elected unopposed

• Equality officer

Dima Barakat Chami elected unopposed

• Campaigns officer

Lesley McGorrigan elected unopposed

• Health and safety officer

Neil Maughan elected unopposed

• Anti-casualisation officer

Cat Oakley elected unopposed

• Ordinary committee members

The following members were elected unopposed

Gabriella Alberti

George Ellison

Alaric Hall

Hugh Hubbard

Laura Loyola-Hernandez

Lata Narayanaswamy

Brendan Nicholls

Malcolm Povey

Alan Roe

Andi Rylands

Paul Steenson

Mark Taylor-Batty

Peter Tennant

Mark Walkley

Chloe Wallace

Rachel Walls

Andy West

Kelli Zezulka

The meeting then became inquorate. Below are notes of the subsequent informal discussions

• Treasurer’s report

An indicative vote was taken on the treasurer’s proposed local subscription options.

Band	Salary Range			Current	Option 1	Option 2	Option 3
	start	mid	top		No change	0.0067%	0.0060%
F0	£60,000	£65,000	above	£2.40	£2.40	£4.08	£3.90
F1	£40,000	£50,000	£59,999	£2.40	£2.40	£2.72	£3.00
F2	£30,000	£35,000	£39,999	£2.40	£2.40	£2.04	£2.10
F3	£20,000	£25,000	£29,999	£2.40	£2.40	£1.36	£1.50
F4	£10,000	£15,000	£19,999	£2.40	£2.40	£0.68	£0.90
F5	£5,000	£7,500	£9,999	£0.60	£0.60	£0.34	£0.45
F6	£0	£2,500	£5,000	£0.60	£0.60	£0.00	£0.15

The three proposed options were:

1.   Maintain current rates

2.   0.0067% of ‘start’ of salary range

3.   0.0060% of ‘mid’ of salary range, noting the estimate of £65,000 for the £60,000-above range.

The indicative vote was for option 2. There was also some discussion about exploring a more tapered system for the next year where lower paid members would pay a lower percentage of salary.

• Health and safety officer’s report

Written report was circulated.

1. Membership officer’s report

Increase of 365 members. Thanks to everyone who has helped by encouraging colleagues to join. Thanks to the vice chancellor, HR and the deputy vice-chancellor for student education for their considerable help in increasing union membership. (There was a proposal to send them a letter of thanks.) Big increase in postgraduate members – now over 200. We all need to talk to colleagues about joining the union.

1. Motions (see appendix)
   1. Motion 1. Gaza protest and Israeli response. Proposed by James Dickins.
   1. Motion 2. Rule change – department reps. Proposed by Alaric Hall

Motions will be moved to a later meeting. Gaza motion similar to this one has been put on the congress agenda by the NEC.

1. Any other business

None taken.

This page was last updated on 16 May 2019