Dear UCU members,
On behalf of our branch committee we would like to send to you our Seasons Greetings and also wish you a Happy 2025.
This year has been a mixed year for all of us.
As I’m sure you all know, in April this year, we had our pension benefits restored. This followed tireless industrial action over several years by you, our members. We should be very proud of what we have achieved in this respect and we should not underestimate its importance. We have an excellent pension that we can all look forward to in our retirement!
At a local level, we are very pleased with the new revised joint union agreement with UoN. This has far more favourable terms, including correct recognition of facility time at the salary levels of UCU Officers, Case workers and Reps. Huge thanks goes to our past President, Andreas Bieler, Treasurer Agnes Flues and Regional Officer Julie Cooper for all the hard work they put into agreeing this document. As a result, the university now has a new Joint Negotiation and Consultative Committee (JNCC) which meet trade union leads every 3 months. There are five sub-committees who will report to the JNCC, with the following branch committee officers representing UoNUCU on these sub-committees:
- HR Policies: Andrew Renault, Lisa Rull
- Pay and Award: Andrew Armstrong, Lopa Leach and Gerardus Lucas
- Organisational Change: Cecilia Testa, Lopa Leach, Andreas Bieler
- Performance and Talent: Gerardus Lucas, Jenny Elliot, Melanie Bhend
- Contracts: Michaela Collord, Sam O’Thompson
We will be working on the terms of reference on each group from January.
Of course, we have also had our challenges this year
We have had numerous meetings with the university this year on finance and MARS! As you all know, the university finds itself with a large financial deficit through a combination of external pressure and poor financial decision making. Perhaps the most notable example of this is the purchase of Castle Meadow Campus but the problems run much deeper than just one bad decision. The university has faced two major liquidity crises within the space of four years (!) demonstrating the current financial model is not resilient to shocks. In response to the confidential mid-term financial plan (MTFP) shared with our Finance group, we presented our Alternative Financial Strategy 2.0to the Vice-Chancellor and Finance Officer. We have been told that the Treasurer of the university has seen this document. Our recommendations include:
- Exercise extreme caution in pursuing strategic capital spending programs;
- Avoid a risky strategy of shrinking portfolio of activities that reduces research and teaching capacity in an uncertain environment;
- Urgent review of the size and shape of the capital spending program including divestment of CMC:
- Reversal to a contribution based model;
- Changing governance structure and accountability: scrutiny of MTFP should involve revenue generating units i.e. Schools and Senate, our only partially elected body.
AFS 2.0 is the work of just one of the branch committee’s several working groups. Others include the Workload Campaign Group who have initiated the legal Stress Risk assessments and Health and Safety Inspections and the tireless Anti-Casualisation Group, who have continued to challenge precarious working conditions at the university. In the last year, the anti-cas group have succeeded in securing better pay and conditions for postgraduate demonstrators in the Faculty of Science. The Palestine Working Group invited Sundos Hammad and Anne Alexander to speak about scholasticide in Gaza. They have also set up the BDS pledge, where staff and PhD students at UoN can sign up and pledge our solidarity with Palestinians against Israeli occupation, ethnic cleansing and plausible genocide. If you support this campaign, please sign the pledge if you haven’t done so already. See also below a link to the recent House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee meeting on Israel and Palestine where Dr Victor Kattan (Law) gave evidence.
We have continued our work on Equalities, inviting Maxine Looby to come and talk about Tackling Structural Racism. We have also stood with our BAME Staff network on their challenges and concerns re the Historical Links to Transatlantic Enslavement (link to report below) and the low key handling of this information by UoN. This has created a sense of exclusion of members of the network and black students. Their demands for reparative justice include :
- A shared understanding that staff and students of colour should not bear the sole burden of creating solutions
- Tangible reparative actions, including scholarships, public memorials, permanent visual acknowledgements, funding for community projects
- The need for an actionable timeline— the start of a long-term commitment, not a one-off conversation.
We said a sad farewell to Agnes, our wonderful former president who passed away so tragically in August. You can read her obituary in The Guardian. Agnes’ funeral was poignant and very well attended. In November, many of us took part in the Wollaton Hall Park Run in her memory and your generous contributions raised a substantial amount of money for the hardship fund. The dedicated annual lecture will occur next term and we are planning to create a plaque to place in Memorial Forest at UP. We will update you next term.
On farewells, two of our most tireless activists, Howard Stevenson and Tony Simmonds are leaving UoN. For those of you who don’t know, Howard was President of UoNUCU from 2013 to 2016 and then Branch Reps co-ordinator from 2018 onwards. He served another stint as President from August 2023 to January 2024. His presence and strength shown during our disputes is incomparable, including the amazing breakfasts at entrance to Jubilee Campus and the many teach-outs . Tony joined the Committee in July 2021, as APM Officer. He served as Secretary from July 2023 -now. Tony joined UoN in February 2011 as Senior Research Librarian, in UoN Libraries, this perhaps should have alerted us about how well read he was on employment law and branch rules and regulations. His calm presence, approachability and friendship at meetings and the picket line will be sorely missed. Farewell both. See selected images below of these two wonderful trade unionists and how they have enriched our lives.
We are happy to report that Tony played his part on trying to find a new Secretary to step into his very big shoes. Please may we introduce Nick Clare (Geography) as the new Secretary for the rest of the year. (Yes!). As we move towards more challenging times, we are also heartened by the fact that two of our committee Thomas Sotiriou and Andrew Armstrong have been elected by Senate to serve on Council. This is an excellent and important achievement as we enter a difficult period ahead.
There is no doubt that 2025 will be a busy year for our industrial relations. As you will already know, UCU will soon be balloting for industrial action over pay, following our collective decision to reject last year’s pay offer from our employers. As a committee, we will be keeping a watchful eye on Future Nottingham, what size and shape means for us, and the proposed course changes. Please be rest assured that any major redundancy announcements will immediately result in an industrial dispute as unanimously voted for at the last members meeting. We will be forming a new working group in the new year to plan ahead for possible redundancies. We will be inviting members to join this group early next year.
Together we are strong.
Happy Holidays ,
Lopa, Andreas and Tony P
(UoNUCU President, Vice President and Treasurer).