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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