Seasons Greetings and update on 2024 for UoN UCU members

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 ScienceThe 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 UoNThis 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).

Agenda for branch meeting 24th September

Dear members,

Hope you have had as nice a summer break as you could. The branch meeting tomorrow will be our first 24/25 meeting of the year. Please find below the agenda for tomorrow’s meeting and the Zoom link again. The meeting will start promptly at 12:30 pm.

We will update you about the beautiful ceremony held last week, which so many of you attended in person or by live stream. The Eulogies were given by Manuel, Olympia (Head of Law) and myself (on behalf of UoNUCU), there were readings by two other friends. The celebrant Louise Savage, was brilliant. The huge role that Agnes played for us was beautifully elucidated by her, Manuel and us. Manuel put together a slideshow of Agnes, which of course had so many images of her at our rallies, picket lines etc. The Regional committee also had a dedicated session this Saturday where Andreas Bieler spoke for our branch.

We have been updated verbally on latest MARS by HR. There were 515 applications, 293 approved, 222 declined and 2 withdrawals. We were told that 69 will leave in August, 13 in September, 8 in October, 1 in November, 183 in December. We have yet to receive numerical data at school level from HR. Thanks to our Reps for letting us have, where available, individual school data. They report inconsistencies and the picture is still incomplete. This makes the Workload as a Health & Safety issue even more important. Please see attached an important document written by Jenny Elliot et al (UCU Workload Group). We have sent this document to HR as well.

Regarding MARS, many of our UCU colleagues have availed themselves of this. We thank them for their amazing loyalty to us and the ways they have always supported workers rights.

And finally, and importantly, we need your thoughts about the UCEA pay offer/pay elements and future UCU strategies which Gertjan Lucas and I can take to the Branch Delegate Meeting and voice your decisions there after our Branch meeting.

See you tomorrow,

Lopa.

General Meeting 24 September, 2024, 12:30 -1:30 pm. Agenda:

  • Update on Agnes.
    • Celebration of the life of Agnes Flues.
    • Annual Agnes Flues Lecture.
    • Tree in UP and Obituary.
  • Workload as a Health & Safety Issue.
  • Pay negotiations and the next steps (voting).

Season’s Greetings from UoN UCU – email to members

Sent to members 20th December 2023.

Dear UCU member

On behalf UCU Branch Officers I am writing to thank you for your commitment to the union, locally and nationally through 2023.

It has been a very tough year, with ballot campaigns and industrial action, including the Marking and Assessment Boycott. We have not achieved all that we hoped for, and on some key issues we will have to maintain our campaigns and pressure. But it is important to acknowledge the scale of the victory on USS. In two weeks time every members of USS will be paying lower contributions, and by April we will have our pensions back (with uprating for the lost years). You can see the immediate impact on your contributions here.

Make no mistake, it was our action that has achieved this win. Every member of USS will benefit, but it was our solidarity and financial sacrifice that secured this outcome. Collective action works.

In the year ahead your local branch will be focusing relentlessly on working in our own institution to improve the quality of our working lives – defending jobs, demanding equality and fighting for secure contracts and sustainable workloads.  The branch committee has been busy developing a plan to take this work forward next year, and there will be lots of opportunities to be involved in different ways. Watch this space.

Nationally the union will need to consider how its campaigns move forward. Much of this debate will take place through the election process for General Secretary (starting in earnest in the New Year).  As with all such developments, locally we will be working to provide members with the maximum opportunity to engage in debates and participate in decision-making.

Finally, as a branch we will continue to play our role in the wider trade union movement – whether that is defending public services in our own community in Nottingham City or standing in solidarity with those elsewhere in the world, for example in Ukraine and Gaza, who currently face unspeakable hardship.

There will be much to do in 2024, and there is much happening now that is a source of great anxiety, but we hope all our members get to enjoy a well earned break over the holiday period and that it will be possible to enjoy a genuine rest in the company of family and friends. Enjoy the time.

With best wishes, and in solidarity,

Howard and UoN UCU branch officers

National UCU ballot outcome – message to members at Nottingham

Dear UCU member

You will by now be aware that UCU did not meet the 50% threshold in the pay and conditions ballot that closed last week.

This result is desperately disappointing. It marks the end, for now, of the disputes that first began in early 2018 when we took strike action to defend the USS pension scheme. 

However, despite the setback of the ballot result, it is important to recognise that the battle for our pensions has been won.  It is an unprecedented victory, and our action has secured substantial benefits for every USS member in the sector.  It would not have happened unless UCU members made it happen.

Nevertheless, while proclaiming the scale of the win on USS, we also need to acknowledge that we did not make a breakthrough on pay, precarity, workload and equalities. For all our efforts, we were not able to shift our employers on these core issues.  That fight will need to continue, but realistically not until the union has collectively taken stock of our recent campaigns and assessed the implications for future strategy.  As always, your local branch will endeavour to engage with members as much as is possible, and will take every opportunity to present members’ views in national debates and decision-making processes.

For now, I would like to make two points:

First, is to make clear that your local branch will continue to make every effort to make progress on the issues that matter to you by working locally to improve the working conditions of UCU members at Nottingham. Our records indicate that over 60% of UoNUCU branch members voted in the national ballot (the national turnout was 42%). Those figures show that branch members at Nottingham remain profoundly dissatisfied with working conditions in the sector, and in our institution, and remain committed to acting collectively to address the issues. In the immediate future we will be focusing that frustration locally.  The union branch is completely committed to national bargaining, and being part of a national framework, but we know there is plenty of scope to act locally and to make real progress on core issues.  Our recent local agreement on principles for the use of casual contracts is one example of how your union branch is winning for members at the local level. The commitment of branch officers and departmental reps is to build on this success and to seek to make further progress across a wider range of issues. In the coming weeks and months we will be sharing our plans to develop these campaigns, and at every turn we will be working to engage with as many members as possible. There will be lots of opportunities to be involved!

Second, is to extend a heartfelt thanks from the branch committee to every member who has been involved in our campaigns since they began back in 2018. Whatever we may think of the outcomes, and some of the decisions that have been made along the way, the experience has been extraordinary. Here are some figures to reflect the experience.

·      11 industrial action ballots (six in the last year) – disaggregated, aggregated and one covering only our branch. Not only did we get over 50% every single time, but in the last disaggregated ballot UoNUCU secured the highest turnout across 150 branches nationally.  In the ballot in March 2023 our records showed a turnout of 73%!

·      69 days of strike action – whatever the weather!

·      Two marking and assessment boycotts, including throughout Summer this year when the branch called 7 branch meetings in 8 weeks during July and August!

The level of engagement by branch members has been astonishing – every vote cast, every picket line stood on, every meeting attended and throughout the MAB. It is what secured the win on pensions, and it is what needs to be mobilised across the sector to win on working conditions. That breakthrough will have to come, because although the ballot result marks the end of the current campaign, UCU’s action has made visible the flaws in the UK higher education system that employers and governments cannot ignore. The marketised and individualised model of higher education that successive governments have promoted is a busted flush – and it is action by UCU members that has exposed just how broken it is. We have refused to accept that there is no alternative to the unsustainable system currently on offer, and in so doing, we have kept alive the idea that another university is possible.

At this precise moment, with the recent ballot result, we are clearly not where we want to be as a national union. But we have much to be proud about, and locally we remain well placed to face the future. We keep going – and we look forward to working with members to make sure we secure the change the sector needs.

In solidarity,

Howard
University of Nottingham UCU Branch President (union email here)