Dear members,
Apologies for the short notice but we wanted to update you on the negotiation meeting we just had with management. They clearly understood your anger and that the previous offer wasn’t enough to convince people to stand down anything. They also clearly grasp the time-sensitivity of marks coming in for accredited modules and that staff can’t be expected to drop everything/overrule annual leave to turn round marks in an unrealistic timeframe.
In particular we spoke about: the need for a much better offer on pay deductions, improvements on the enhanced VR offer, and a clear commitment around course closures. This was understood and we are hopeful there is room for movement on all of these, and that, as a consequence, we could prevent compulsory redundancies.
However, given the need for a significantly improved offer, they have said they won’t be able to get anything to us in time for the proposed 11.30 meeting, so as a consequence we have made the decision not to run the meeting and give you some time back in your day. (Committee members also have another three hours of union meetings today so we need to preserve our energy as well as yours!)
They are hopeful they can get an offer to us on Thursday or Friday, and as soon as they have we will pass it on to you for consideration and we will sort an emergency members meeting to vote on it.
Sorry again for the last minute change, but I hope this is all clear. Do be in touch if you have any specific questions and we also have our Zoom coffee morning on Friday at 10 for any further points you want to raise.
In solidarity as always,