UCU University of Leeds BranchPosted on by Alan Smith
This motion was agreed by the branch at a general meeting 25 January 2022
Leeds UCU agrees to call a dispute with the employer as a consequence of the capability procedure being used to cause a member of staff to lose their status as a teaching and research member of staff without reference to established role profile definitions and rejecting the right of the UCU to negotiate terms of contract.
Proposed by the committee. Moved by Mark Taylor-Batty, seconded by Joanne Armitage. The motion was carried.
UCU University of Leeds BranchPosted on by Alan Smith
This motion was agreed by the branch at a general meeting 25 January 2022
Leeds UCU notes that:
Bristol university has sacked UCU member, Professor David Miller;
David Miller’s work is critical of Israel;
Bristol University, under external political pressure, has abrogated its responsibility to defend academic freedom;
the QC appointed by the University of Bristol to investigate allegations concluded that Miller was not guilty of unlawful speech, and that claims that his behaviour was antisemitic were unfounded;
Miller’s is only the most prominent of such cases that have proliferated across the HE sector since Government pressure was applied to universities and colleges to adopt the IHRA definition.
Leeds UCU resolves to:
send its expression of solidarity and concern to Professor Miller;
write to the University of Bristol VC, Senate and Trustees urging that the Miller dismissal be rescinded;
write to UCU HEC calling for UCU support for any future crowdfunding to continue legal processes to overturn this decision, and calling for a consideration of ‘greylisting’ of Bristol until Miller is reinstated;
contribute from branch funds to any future crowdfunding in support of Miller’s legal redress;
explain the case to members, and urge individual financial support for future crowdfunding;
publicly express concern about this attack on academic freedom at Bristol;
call on the General Secretary and President to write to the VC, Senate and Trustees at Bristol to express the UCU condemnation of this assault on academic freedom and the damage to the reputations of staff and students associated with the University.
Proposed by Lesley McGorrigan. Moved by Lesley McGorrigan, seconded by Janet Watson. The motion was carried.
UCU University of Leeds BranchPosted on by Alan Smith
This is a relatively brief update on health and safety following the government’s, and then the university’s, announcements in relation to relaxing restrictions and mitigations.
We are pleased that the university continues to take a cautious approach and is not dropping all mitigations in the way that the government seems to want. We do however, have some specific concerns.
Notably, as I told you in a recent email, we had asked management to look into providing masks of FFP2 quality to staff. They have now told us they will not do so. The logic behind this is that they believe that the combination of ventilation (which is generally good) and continued distancing means that activities should be safe to be held in-person and if they are not they should not be held in person.
As a result, we advise as follows:
Firstly, if you are particularly vulnerable to Covid-19 you should speak to your line manager and insist on an individual risk assessment before being prepared to work on campus, particularly in crowded areas or teaching spaces. If you meet any resistance with this, please contact us for support via ucu@leeds.ac.uk
Second, if you are concerned that mitigations in place are not being followed – e.g. the stated capacity of a room is exceeded or people are not maintaining appropriate social distancing, you should remove yourself from the situation, speak to your line manager and let us know.
You will have noted that we are returning to the previous position on face coverings, where staff and students are expected to wear facecoverings in crowded spaces and teaching spaces when asked to do so. We know that compliance with this was patchy and continue to emphasise the importance of clear communication about the benefits of wearing face coverings. If you are aware of breaches of this rule, either because of people not wearing face coverings in a crowded space, or because of students not wearing face coverings when asked to do so, please report to your manager. If you are a manager, please escalate these issues to the Health and Safety teams if necessary. I would particularly ask securely employed staff, and staff in management positions, to do everything you can to communicate with students and try to build a culture of respect – junior staff, and particularly precariously employed and hourly paid staff, tell us that they do not feel empowered to insist on face coverings if students do not comply.
Finally, we understand that managers have been asked to continue to be flexible about working from home, particularly for staff who are vulnerable or who live with people who are vulnerable. We also understand that, on the ground, there are cases where that flexibility is not in fact happening. Please let us know if you are having issues and we can support you in challenging the situation.
This post is from an email sent to branch members 25 January 2022 by branch president Chloe Wallace.
UCU University of Leeds BranchPosted on by Alan Smith
First meeting 5-6pm Tues 25 January on Zoom Weekly meetings thereafter
This post is from an email sent to UCU members on Monday 24 January 2022 by Simon Moore and Xanthe Whittaker from the branch committee. See email for Zoom link.
Next month UCU will be entering a second phase of our disputes over USS pensions and ‘four fights’ (casualisation, workloads, equal pay and pay). This means preparing for the possibility of sustained strike action and action short of strike (ASOS). It requires the branch to think about how we facilitate maximum participation in action, maximum effectiveness of our tactics and how we sustain ourselves through the period of action.
At our recent emergency general meeting, the branch voted to hold regular organising meetings to discuss tactics for how we best organise picketing, rallies and teach outs. We therefore invite you to join the new strike tactics working group, which myself and Xanthe Whittaker are convening. We will hold open, creative meetings to think about topics such as: new (and old) methods for causing disruption; timing; online picketing; how to coordinate activities across the branch and campus; and how we use action short of strike to maximum advantage in our different working areas.
We want to identify a diversity of specific actions and activities that will facilitate the maximum involvement of members to take sustained strike action – precisely what we need to press the employers to concede to UCU’s demands. The working group will also be a space where we can evaluate and amend our tactics as the industrial action continues.
Please join our first meeting tomorrow (Tuesday) at 5pm – let us know if you’d like the meeting invite. Everyone is welcome, and there’s no expectation of long term commitment. This is our chance to innovate and diversify our tactics so we can win our disputes.
The strike tactics working group will make recommendations to the branch committee and is open to all members.
Best regards,
Xanthe and Simon Conveners of the strike tactics working group
UCU University of Leeds BranchPosted on by Alan Smith
You might be concerned to learn that the university has refused to consult meaningfully with the local UCU branch on the matter of USS pensions. They have told us that they are content to back the UUK position and the shocking intergenerational unfairness that this will imply, with younger colleagues standing potentially to lose more than 40% of the value of their income in retirement compared to colleagues closer to retirement.
With yesterday’s CPI inflation figure being reported at a thirty-year-high of 5.4%, and with our university agreeing with the UUK when they now insist that pension accrual should no longer increase with inflation when it is over 2.5%, we can all of us see that detriment to our pension is guaranteed if the situation is not soon resolved. As that inflation cap has a cumulative effect, it impacts on younger colleagues more. Do note that even if this was the only change that UUK brought to the structure of our pensions, it could cost individuals tens of thousands of pounds over the course of their retirement. When I say ‘individuals’ I mean you. The question to ask now is whether you are willing to accept that unnecessary loss to your income, and all that it will imply for your family, or whether you will be prepared to back the forthcoming strike and action short of a strike to the letter and, alongside your colleagues, try to bring the UUK back to the negotiating table before their damaging and unnecessary measures are imposed. We have only a matter of weeks.
At the same time as hearing that inflation rose to its highest level since 1992, we also learned that the value of the assets of the pension stand now at £92.2bn. This is a £15.4bn higher than the valuation of March 2020 being used to justify UUK’s changes. Please remember that the forecast for the assets that the USS used to calculate a ‘deficit’ assumed that the assets will not reach their current £92bn level until the middle of the next century. In fact, even the 2011 USS valuation – which was used to argue for the end of the final salary scheme – did not predict this actual level of asset value in 2022. When you strike, you are striking to oppose this preposterous valuation and support your union in demanding a reasonable valuation performed using pension industry standards and sensible metrics based on the actual, verifiable value of the scheme.
I want to close with two sets of facts. Firstly, this illustration has been put together by a physicist in Edinburgh using the USS’s own modeller producing a graph of total loss in pension in retirement between age 66-86 based on the UUK proposals. The image here is for cpi inflation at 2.5% and shows that the reduction in total pension, for example, is between 100k and 200k for people born around 1990. With cpi at 3.5% it’s between 100k and 300k. (Reminder: cpi is currently 5.4%). This is essentially a graph mapping intergenerational unfairness.
Please remember, these are not UCU figures, but outputs from the USS modeller. They demonstrate starkly the impact of the UUK proposals, which are supported by our university management. By contrast, please see this statement from the university management at Imperial College, jointly with their UCU branch.
The second fact I want to leave you with is something that has not gained so much attention, but is important for those whose salaries are high enough to already be paying into the defined contribution element of the hybrid USS scheme. UUK’s cuts are worst on earnings between £40k and £60k, second worst on earnings between £0 and £40k, and have the least impact on salaries over £60k. See this blog (in particular para IIb) for detail.
Have a good weekend.
Mark Taylor-Batty, Pension representative for University of Leeds UCU
This post is from an email sent to branch members on 21 January 2022 by Mark Taylor-Batty, committee lead on pensions, on behalf of the committee.
UCU University of Leeds BranchPosted on by Alan Smith
The university finally published its climate plan in December 2021, setting out the pathway for it to reach its net zero target by 2030.
This will no doubt have many impacts for us as a community of workers at the university, and many of us feel strongly that the university has an obligation to set a positive example by fulfilling its climate commitments.
The UCU climate and ecological emergency working group is inviting all members of this UCU branch to read the climate plan, and share with us your views and comments on it. We are particularly interested to know if you think it is an adequate response to the emergencies we face, and whether you feel you have had sufficient opportunity to feed into its development.
Your feedback will help our working group understand the most important issues for us to be focusing on, and help start a discussion about this significant change to University policy.
Beyond this, we are aiming to hold an open meeting alongside our sister trade unions Unison and Unite in late February, so that we can discuss these issues in greater detail. Full details to follow.
We feel it is important that we as workers get to influence policy at the University, especially on an issue as threatening as this one. So please join us to make our voices heard.
In solidarity.
This post is from an email to UCU members from the UCU University of Leeds branch climate and ecological emergency working group, sent on 14 January 2022. If you’d like to join the group, please email ucu@leeds.ac.uk – you would be very welcome
UCU University of Leeds BranchPosted on by Alan Smith
This motion was agreed by the branch at an extra-ordinary general meeting 14 January 2022
This branch notes that:
Our branch has a strong mandate for industrial action relating to the USS dispute and the ‘Four Fights’
we had an excellent response from members to the strike action prior to the Christmas holiday.
other UCU branches who have been in local dispute have been taking sustained strike action
we have, as yet, little information from HQ as to the next stage of the industrial dispute
This branch believes that:
it is only through sustained strike action that the employers will be forced to concede to UCU’s demands.
we need to ensure maximum involvement of our members in visible activity during the strike period, both in person and online
this involves making the sustained action sustainable, and be realistic about members’ in-person participation at a time of online working and the pandemic , hence diversifying our forms of action during a long strike
escalation including marking boycott should be considered if the employer does not come back to the negotiating table
This branch resolves that:
we prepare for the possibility of sustained strike action (2-4 weeks) followed by action short of strike
we hold regular organising meetings to review tactics around timing and mixing of picketing, rallies and teach outs.
we share educational material from the UCU Strike Schools including how to engage with the public and co-workers during pickets
Proposed by G. Alberti, J. Holgate, D. Kascelan, moved by Gabriella Alberti, seconded by Alan Roe, the motion was amended during the debate to the text above, the motion was carried as amended.
UCU University of Leeds BranchPosted on by Alan Smith
We are continuing to engage with management in relation to the current fast moving public health situation. At the moment, we expect that most staff are working from home and the University position is that staff should only be working from campus when it is necessary. If you are being asked to work on campus when it is not necessary please let us know. The University has also tightened up the rules in relation to the wearing of face coverings – we have emphasised the importance of clear and firm communication of these new rules to both students and staff, whilst recognising, of course, that some people are exempt from wearing face coverings. We have asked management to look into providing masks of FFP2 quality to staff. We can confirm that at the moment all ventilated rooms are ventilated to a standard that exceed UCU requirements but please continue to report to us any concerns you have about spaces being used over capacity.
We are also continuing to emphasise the importance of protecting staff with medical conditions who are vulnerable to COVID-19, or those who live with those people – whilst the public discourse is that Omicron is less serious, the fact remains that this virus can seriously harm and kill people and some are at more risk than others. Please let us know if you need our support on this.
Finally, we have been listening to concerns from PGR members who teach about the lack of entitlement to paid sick leave. This forms part of our anticasualisation claim to the University, which has now been ignored by management for 3 years. In the current context, we emphasise that paid sick leave for all is a vital measure to enable people to take the necessary steps to stop the virus spreading. We will be discussing this with senior management very shortly and will keep you posted.
This post is from an email to members from branch president Chloe Wallace sent on 11 January 2021
UCU University of Leeds BranchPosted on by Alan Smith
The next ordinary general meeting for members of UCU University of Leeds branch is 1pm – 2pm Tuesday 25 January 2022.
Please submit any motions or agenda items for this meeting to ucu@leeds.ac.uk by 12pm Tuesday 18 January.
(This is not to be confused with the extraordinary general meeting at 1pm on Friday 14 January to feed into national decisions about the ongoing industrial action, for which motions should be submitted by 12pm tomorrow (6 January) if possible, or by 12pm on Wednesday 12 January for late motions arising from of something after the initial deadline.)
UCU University of Leeds BranchPosted on by Alan Smith
Ben has retired so we need a new equality officer – could it be you? Or one of your colleagues?
At the last annual general meeting we agreed Ben Plumpton and Megan Povey would jointly cover the UCU University of Leeds branch equality officer role from September to December, and that we would seek new nominations after Christmas. Ben has now retired (after years of amazing work for UCU members) so the committee is seeking nominations for a new equality officer.
The deadline for nominations is the close of Friday 21 January.
When making a nomination, or thinking of standing yourself, it’s useful to consider the importance that the committee represents the whole membership and no group is over-represented to the accidental exclusion of others, as happens some years (but not every year) with the over-representation of male and/or white union members.
This post is from an email to members from the branch administrator on 5 January 2022
