Author: UCU Nottingham

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AGM reminder and new emergency motion on workload

Email sent to members on Monday 28th April 2025. Content has been modified slightly for the purposes of this post.

Dear Member,

Thanks so much to all of you who came along to the inaugural Agnes Flues memorial lecture on Thursday. We had a fantastic turnout and a great talk from Mick Lynch. If you would like to see some photos take a look at this link here.

AGM reminder and new motion

I am just writing with a final reminder about Wednesday’s AGM, as well as an additional emergency motion surrounding workload that has been put forward by the branch committee. As you will know our excellent workload campaign has made some really significant strides of late, but there are some concerning new developments about expectations that workloads can be regularly as high as 120%, something that will only be made worse with potential redundancies caused by Future Nottingham. This motion addresses that.

Congress and nominee update

Beyond the motion there are also two small additions, one is an updated and now correct list of nominees for next year, and the other relates to Congress. Branch Committee have received and endorsed one amendment to a motion scheduled for debate at Congress. In line with our branch rules, a vote by the membership is required on whether to submit this amendment on behalf of the branch. Please find the full text below ahead of discussion at the AGM:

Amendment to SFC7

“Insert following resolve i.

ii. Working with relevant specialist committees, review all officer role job descriptions and the use of language throughout the model branch rules to ensure they reflects current equality strands and language. For example, insert ‘migrant members’ in the enumeration of equality groups in bullet iv) under 8.6 Equality Officer.

And renumber accordingly.”

I have also attached a slightly updated agenda which now includes the new emergency motion and the zoom link for your convenience.

Hope to see you on Wednesday.

Nick (Branch Secretary)

UCU UoN is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

Topic: UCU UoN AGM
Time: Apr 30, 2025 13:00 London
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88616322843?pwd=R2XekibdbDSSh4Iglw3HbWFYXLTvvd.1

Meeting ID: 886 1632 2843
Passcode: 929647

AGM Agenda – Wednesday 30th April 1.00 – 2.30

  1. Welcome and introduction (Lopa Leach – President)
  2. Branch Committee membership 2025/26 (Nick Clare – Secretary)
  3. President’s report on 2024/25 (Lopa Leach – President)
  4. Treasurer’s report on 2024/25 (Tony Padilla – Treasurer)
  5. Debate and vote on Motion 1: “New progressive pay structure for highest earners to protect jobs at UoN” (attached)
  6. Debate and vote on Motion 2: “No 120 per cent workload at UoN!” (attached)
  7. Debate and vote on Motion 3: ”Support a Trade Dispute with Secretary of State for Education over Funding” (attached)
  8. Congress preparation
  9. Any Other Business

Motion 1: “New progressive pay structure for highest earners to protect jobs at UoN”

Motion 2: “No 120 per cent workload at UoN!”

Motion 3: ”Support a Trade Dispute with Secretary of State for Education over Funding”

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UCU has reported UoN to HSE re: workload and stress prevention breaches

Email sent to members on Friday 21st March 2025

Dear members

We wanted to let you know that after asking for stress prevention documentation for several months, the UCU Branch Committee made the decision to report UoN to HSE for workload and stress breaches. Below is the summary of what we told HSE:

  • Already over 30 requests for caseworker support this year, a sharp increase to the comparative time period in previous years.
  • High levels of “stress and worry regarding work” identified in the 2023-4 Specialist Wellbeing Services report.
  • Failure to produce stress risk assessment and business unit level stress risk assessments despite repeated requests from September 2024.
  •  A sloppy and hastily completed Institution Level Risk Assessment finally shared last week, without any dialogue with UCU.  It is inadequate as it needs to be supported by Business Unit Stress Risk Assessments, which are not in place. It includes Future Nottingham as a stress mitigating factor.
  • UCU workload reps were told that risk assessments have been delayed due to workload issues amongst administrative and professional staff
  • Most academic staff have a “workload model” which in many cases is calculated as over 100% i.e. a staff member contracted to work full time is required to complete more work than can be expected within their contracted hours. Within university policy, workload up to 120% is considered within normal range, with no rationale for this, despite numerous requests.
  • There is no evidence of equality impact assessment for workload models and no mitigations put in place for disabled colleagues, exacerbating increased vulnerability to stress.                 

The UCU branch considers that there is substantial unmitigated risk to workload-related health. The branch is also concerned by an anticipated increase in the number and severity of cases of work-related stress, stress-related ill health and serious mental health problems among employees.

We will keep you posted on developments with HSE. In the meantime, if you are struggling with work-related stress, ask your line manager for an Individual Stress Risk Assessment. Please come to the weekly workload support drop-ins, for advice and guidance on just saying ‘no!’ to unsustainable workloads. Check the weekly branch newsletter for dates and times of these. We will be in touch soon to ask for testimonials on your workload and stress experiences. You are not on your own with this. 

Your Workload Working Group

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UoN UCU Motions for 2025 UCU Congress

The following motions were passed with large majorities by members at the well-attended meeting on Wednesday 12th March.

Motions for Congress

1. Reporting back of NEC members to constituencies

Congress instructs the NEC to formulate rule change motions to ensure
the following:

  1. NEC members canvass opinions from branches and regions in their
    constituencies prior to NEC and NEC subcommittee meetings.
  2. NEC members produce a written report within two working weeks of
    NEC and NEC subcommittees to be circulated in the appropriate
    constituency.
  3. Appropriate mechanisms to be established by UCU to support
    circulation of reports from NEC members to constituencies.

Rule Change Motions for Congress

2. Change to Rule 16

Add new rule 16.5.1

Where National Congress or Sector Conferences do not meet during the times referred to in rule 16.5, the relevant National Congress or Sector Conferences must be recalled as soon as reasonably practicable to consider the motions submitted to the National Congress or Sector Conferences. Additional late and emergency motions can be considered at the recalled Congress or Sector Conference in line with rules 16.8 and 16.9.

Purpose:
To enshrine in rule that in the event of cancellation, Congress or Sector Conference need to be rescheduled. Rather than, as has happened when the rules were silent on the matter, motions disappear into a void in spite of the hard work submitting bodies undertook to compose them and the efforts of elected delegates to prepare to debate them.

3. Change to regional committee standing orders –
Environmental Representative

To Standing order 7 of the UCU Regional Committee Model Standing Orders, add ‘an Environmental representative’ after ‘a representative of members on casual contracts’

So the amended Model Standing Order 7 would read:

Treasurer, the Secretary and the Chairs and Secretaries of the sector committees, and for each sector, a representative of members on casual contracts, an Environmental representative together with such other Officers as may be deemed necessary.

Purpose:
The importance of environmental issues and the seriousness of climate change means that there should be an Environmental representative on regional committees. The rule change will add one.

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No Compulsory Redundancies at UoN!

Today’s well-attended members meeting centred around two sets of motions. The first motion passed with 96% in favour directs the branch to enter into dispute to combat the risk of compulsory redundancies.

Motion on UoN No Compulsory Redundancies

This branch notes:

  • The investment of £91.5m (including VAT) for purchase and base refit of Castle Meadow Campus (CMC);
  • Management’s admission that the sale of CMC in part or whole is currently being discussed, as this campus does not fulfil UoN’s needs;
  • After decades of neglect, UoN infrastructure is falling apart. The list of buildings in dire need of repair include the Sir Clive Granger Building, the Medical School and several Student Halls amongst others;
  • Due to the Mutually Agreed Resignation Scheme in 2024, almost 300 colleagues already left UoN recently, resulting in an increase in workload for remaining staff;
  • Management’s current widespread use of ‘protected’ and ‘without prejudice’ conversations in several parts of the university in an attempt to push people to leave the university based on spurious and non-existent performance criteria;
  • The ongoing capability mapping of APM staff, while our APM colleagues do their best to accommodate the additional work that is required in making Unicore fit for purpose;
  • Several people in school leadership roles have reported that they are being asked to reduce activities in their schools by 20 per cent. This seems to be happening right across the institution;
  • On Monday February 17, our Branch President wrote to the Vice Chancellor to ask formally if she could rule out compulsory redundancies this academic year and next. The following morning she replied making it quite clear that she was not prepared to rule out compulsory redundancies in either case.

This branch believes:

  • That while there is a challenging financial environment across Higher Education in the UK, the scale of the projected deficit at the University of Nottingham is due to ongoing local financial mismanagement, evidenced by infrastructure investment in excess of affordability and the spectacularly disastrous purchase of CMC;
  • That management continues with its failed top-down approach to decision-making overlooking existing expertise at UoN;
  • That management is currently moving towards a large-scale phase of compulsory redundancies;
  • That staff have lost trust in management as a result of the manufactured uncertainty causing significant levels of additional stress;

This branch resolves:

  • Not to accept any compulsory redundancies;
  • To declare an industrial dispute over the VC’s failure to rule out compulsory redundancies this and next academic year and to lay the groundwork for a ballot for industrial action unless the University agrees in writing to rule out compulsory redundancies in this year and the next.

No compulsory redundancies at UoN!

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Members meeting information – Wednesday 12th March, 1-2pm

Email sent to members on Monday 3rd March.

Dear members,

As promised I am emailing with further information about our branch meeting on Wednesday 12th March. This will take place online from 1-2pm using the following zoom link.

[Please see email dated Wednesday 3rd March from Nick Clare for Zoom details]

As well as important updates on the state of play here at UoN, the meeting has two main topics to cover.

No compulsory redundancies motion

The first is to debate and vote on a new motion (attached) that builds on one that we as a branch passed in late 2023 which made a commitment to defending jobs. Given the Vice Chancellor’s refusal to rule out compulsory redundancies this new motion makes our commitment to this clear and would begin the process moving towards a mandate for industrial action.

Congress preparation

The second is about our branch’s involvement with the 2025 UCU national congress. The motions proposed for the branch to submit can be found at this link. A total of three motions have been received which we will debate and vote on.

Members are invited to submit any amendments by 12.00 noon Friday 7 March. You can make proposals to add to or change the wording of these motions. Please ensure you clearly identify which motion you are proposing amendments for. Note that any amendments cannot change regular motions to exceed the word limits of 10 for the title and 150 for the motion text. Rule change motions have no word limits, meaning amendments to them do not either.

Please also remember the deadline for Congress delegate nominations. We have received one nomination so far, meaning there are still three open delegate spots. Please submit your nomination by email to uonucubranch@gmail.com by Monday 10 March at 12 noon, indicating whether you would wish to attend on site in Liverpool (UCU will provide accommodation and reimburse reasonable travel expenses) or online, as well whether you are willing to be on the reserve list as an alternate (should one of the delegates elected on 12 March become unavailable unexpectedly).

In solidarity,

Nick, branch secretary 

Motion on UoN No Compulsory RedundanciesDownload
UoN UCU Motions for 2025 Congress & HESCDownload