A version of the below email was sent to members on 5th February 2024
Dear members,
My colleagues Lopa Leach, Cecilia Testa and I have been in regular contact with management about the university’s financial situation. While there is a projected deficit this academic year, the university has also built-up cash reserves of £124 million over recent years. These reserves must not go below £50 million, but in our view this still leaves ample room for manoeuvre and cannot justify the severe cuts to our research, teaching and administration budgets. Management argues that the cuts are only this and next financial year. We, however, point out that these cuts have rather medium- to long-term consequences for the university’s reputation and research capacity. We will continue to press for a change in financial policy that addresses long-term financial sustainability without damaging university core business.
To discuss these issues in more depth, we will hold a members meeting on Wednesday, 28 February, 1 to 2 p.m. Details to follow, but please put the meeting in your diaries already now.
At today’s members meeting, the attached motion [see below] including amendments was passed by a clear majority with only one abstention and one rejection. Our support for demonstrators in the School of Chemistry is testimony to the capacity of our local branch to support every member in every part of the university. Thank you!
Additionally, I would like to draw your attention to the current UCU elections. Information about the related processes and election addresses can be found on this webpage from UCU national. Importantly, hustings for the General Secretary elections are scheduled for tomorrow Thursday 1 February, 12.30-14.00 and for the position of Vice-President on Tuesday 6 February, 16.00-17.00 Over the last three to four years during our disputes over USS and the 4 Fights, we have learned how influential these roles are in determining UCU strategy. Please inform yourselves and make every effort to participate in these elections.
Please remember our local Gaza – Ceasefire Now protest on 7 February, 1 to 2 p.m. on University Park in line with general national UCU policy. Details about the event will be circulated closer to the time, but please put it in your diary already now.
Members will undoubtedly be concerned about the current rolling out of drastic financial cuts. Yet again, financial difficulties are immediately translated into cut-backs. I can assure members that the local committee observes the situation closely and is in regular dialogue with management. It will be important to raise critical questions at the various roadshows, currently underway at UoN. Please consult your local rep, who is involved in coordinating our UCU input. In general, some of you may still remember our Alternative Financial Strategy (AFS) from spring 2021. It may well be time for AFS 2.0.
Moreover, UCU is launching a new national project called The Future of Work in Post-16 Education. Its aim is to shape the future of education so that technology enables the work of staff and students, rather than acting as a barrier. This responds in part to the extended role of technology during the pandemic, and in part to AI developments since then. Online platforms may help members to innovate in the education and support they provide, and can make our lives easier. However, they also hold large amounts of personal data and mediate the intellectual property that members generate. The project will consider the threats and opportunities of technologies used in the sector, and how UCU should support members and branches to respond. Following a launch event this month, the next step is to establish a Working Group. Expressions of interest are sought from UCU members with all levels of knowledge of the technology arriving in our workplaces.
Finally, I have taken over the role of President of the local UCU branch from Howard Stevenson at the beginning of the current spring semester. I would like to thank Howard on behalf of the branch for his outstanding leadership in enormously difficult circumstances. As a result of the 4 Fights dispute and the related Marking and Assessment Boycott, especially August, normally a quiet month, was extremely busy with many local and national meetings. It is ultimately to Howard’s credit that we extracted ourselves from that dispute as best as possible.
In solidarity,
Andreas (on behalf of the local UCU branch)
Text of motion passed:
Motion on Solidarity with Demonstrators at UoN
This branch notes:
That demonstrators in the School of Chemistry had their pay cut at short notice by being moved from salary spine point 23 to point 18;
That there are worrying noises of demonstrators being ‘strong-armed’ into working despite the lower pay and that efforts are underway to bring in replacement labour from other schools;
That demonstrators continue to be employed via Unitemps rather than UoN directly even though they often work regular hours across the academic year;
That demonstrators have collectively organised and are refusing to continue working at the lower pay rate;
That due to a lack of postgraduates to demonstrate, academics in the School of Chemistry have been instructed to “prioritise lab demonstrating over all other tasks, except of course other teaching commitments, critical external activities or critical University committees.” Academics have been asked to cover “two four-hour slots per academic per week”;
This branch believes:
That any form of intimidation of demonstrators is completely out of order;
That pay cuts at short notice during a cost of living crisis are completely unacceptable;
That demonstrators, whose work involves great levels of responsibility for lab safety and often also includes marking of student work, deserve the same hourly pay as PGTAs employed in the delivery of seminars in the Faculty of Social Sciences and the Faculty of Arts and Humanities, i.e. pay at the level of spine point 23;
That demonstrators should be directly employed by UoN;
That it is unacceptable for (academic) staff to be suddenly roped into a full extra day of work per week.
This branch resolves:
That we support the group of demonstrators, who refuse to work at the lower pay level, with up to £3000 from local branch resources;
That we start a campaign for raising further funds in support of demonstrators in the School of Chemistry;
That we press for direct employment of all demonstrators with UoN in our ongoing negotiations with HR;
This message was sent to UCU members at the University of Nottingham on 17th January 2024.
Dear UCU member,
On behalf of the branch committee, and somewhat belatedly, can I take this opportunity to send you best wishes for 2024. Unfortunately, it is already clear that the year ahead will be a difficult one for the sector, and at the University of Nottingham.
This morning you will have received an email sent from UEB to all staff that refers to ‘unprecedented financial pressures in the sector’ and the probability of a financial deficit at our university this financial year.
Against this background I am writing to make clear your union branch’s commitment to defend your job, pay and working conditions in the year ahead. Branch strategy is focused on 3 priority areas:
We will engage constructively with university management to address problems where it is demonstrably in the interests of our members to do so. Branch officers are meeting with the Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Chief Financial Officer next week, and officers will take every opportunity to represent members’ interests and to seek to ensure that management decisions reflect the priorities of our members.
We will take collective action, up to and including strike action, to defend jobs and resist redundancies (as agreed at our recent branch meeting). This commitment recognises in particular the experience of members on fixed term and precarious contracts who we know from the recent past are particularly vulnerable in these contexts [the union is currently supporting Demonstrators in Chemistry who work on casualised contracts and who recently experienced an imposed and immediate pay cut – please look out for an email later today announcing an extraordinary branch meeting on this issue on 31 January].
We will hold our own management to account for any institution level decisions that serve to exacerbate the sector-wide situation. In the recent past, during the Covid crisis, branch officers worked with branch members who have specialist knowledge, and with an external expert in HE sector finances, to develop a coherent and credible Alternative Financial Strategy (AFS). The branch is already developing an AFS 2.0 that will, as before, offer a viable and sustainable financial model that prioritises the need for a secure and safe environment in which to work and study.
Alongside all of the above, and our response to current problems, the branch committee has a strategic plan for 2024 that focuses on three broad areas – quality of working life, open and democratic governance and equal rights. These plans contain short and longer term objectives, and we are determined that progress in these areas is not be deflected by immediate crises. All members are encouraged to contribute to developing work on these issues and, as with all branch activity, we commit to always being transparent and democratic and to give members every opportunity to shape branch policy and activity.
Let’s keep in touch, let’s work together and let’s look out for each other in 2024.
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.
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)
