Member meeting Jun 15th 1pm

Email sent to members on Tuesday 9th June 2026. Zoom link removed.

Dear members,

Next Monday 15th June at 1pm we will hold a branch meeting for all members on Zoom (link below). The agenda for the meeting is to discuss the progress of our dispute, and to vote on the attached motion submitted by a member. 

The widespread and sustained commitment to the Marking and Assessment Boycott we are seeing reported is hugely significant and a certain cause of considerable disruption. Whilst the university has elected to plan for the use of contingency regulations to attempt to mitigate the MAB, it is important for members to remember this is not a simple throwing of a switch, but a complex and time-consuming process that gets more complex and more time consuming the greater the participation in the MAB. In other words, your action continues to be impactful. Keep going everyone, as this is how we win! 

In anticipation of our branch meeting next week and conscious of the impact of our united action through the MAB and strikes, your branch committee have this week written to the Vice Chancellor to once again emphasise that we are ready to negotiate. If management agree to talk and offer anything meaningful, the committee will of course bring this to members’ meeting next week for your consideration. If they do not make an offer, there will be an update of what we have proposed and what steps we can take to up the pressure on management to get serious and start talking. 

In solidarity,

Members meeting 2pm Monday June 1st

Email sent to members on Wednesday 27th May. Zoom link removed for security.

Dear members,

We’re inviting you to a members meeting at 2pm on Monday 1st of June. We wanted to update you on how the consultation process is going on, but also have a space to discuss industrial action.

As you will have seen, in addition to calling a marking and assessment boycott (MAB) from May 20, UoN UCU has also called strike action from June 1. The strike action was called in response to our employer threatening 100% pay deductions for staff who take part in the MAB. Why did we feel we had to do this? The point is that a MAB is not a strike. Crazy as it may seem, that means an employer can deduct all of your pay for taking in a MAB and still expect you to come to work. Legally, you cannot refuse to come to work in these circumstances without running the risk of being fired. To safely stay away from work entirely, you have to be on strike, not just on a MAB. 

Naturally, we think this is ridiculous. We don’t believe any of our members should be required to work for free. The only way for us to mitigate this was to call a parallel strike, alongside the MAB. This now allows members taking part in a MAB to stay away from work if they wish by simultaneously striking. Members who have no marking and assessment at this time, and are therefore unable to MAB and have no need to take part in a parallel strike, should consider if they would be better off donating generously to the solidarity fund to help sustain the action of others. Details on how to donate are given below. 

We can explain more at the members meeting and can also answer any questions you might have. We would also strongly encourage you to speak to your rep and colleagues in your area as we know industrial action works best when carried out collectively like this.

In solidarity as always,

Donations can be made via bank transfer to:

UCU Nottingham LA63 Hardship Fund

Elections and AGM

Email sent to members on Friday 24th April 2026. Zoom link removed.

Dear member,

I am writing to you with some more information about next week’s Annual General Meeting (on May 1st – International Workers’ Day) and the ZOOM link. Given how much is going on at the moment, the AGM will be a slightly longer meeting than usual and will take place between 1 to 2.30 pm. We will use the second half of the meeting to discuss our ongoing dispute (thank you again for your votes, link to our press release below), update you on the meetings held, the current strategies we are employing, the future ideas from you, in order  to stop the proposed Future Nottingham 2 which will lead to implosion of our university and further heart ache, let alone the unnecessary loss of livelihoods. 

The AGM is the occasion to declare the election results of Executive Officers and Officers (and ordinary members of branch committee) for the next academic year and obtain member approval.   I’m pleased to announce that nominations (and seconders) were received for all the roles that needed to be filled for the academic year 2026/2027 .  I was informed by our Secretary that there were no more than one nominee per role (aside from shared roles) and thus no ballots have been necessary. We also thank Dr Robin Vandome for acting as independent Scrutineer and Election Officer. A full list of nominees and positions can be found below the agenda. As you know, these new positions will not be taken up immediately, with current roles remaining until the new academic year starts.

AGM Agenda – Friday 1st May 1.00 – 2.30

  1. Welcome and introduction (Lopa Leach – President)
  2. Branch Committee membership 2026/27 (Nick Clare – Secretary)
  3. President’s report on 2025/26 (Lopa Leach – President)
  4. Treasurer’s report on 2025/26 (Tony Padilla – Treasurer)
  5. Discussion of our dispute
  6. Any Other Business

Nominees for UoN UCU Branch Committee 

The following nominations have been received for positions on the UoN UCU Branch Committee to serve during the upcoming 2026/27 academic year:

Officers:

President: Nick Clare

Vice President: Andreas Bieler (S1); Mel Bhend (S2)    (S: semester)

Secretary: Andrew Renault

Equalities and Workload: Jenny Elliott

Past President: Lopa Leach

Treasurer: Tony Padilla

Membership Secretary & rep organiser: Will Paterson and Ella Guerin

Casework coordinator & Policy Review Lead: Onni Gust

Casework (and Health & Safety): Cyril Rauch

Health & Safety: Andrew Jackson

Workload Officer and Rep: Mel Bhend (S1)

APM Officer: Andrew Armstrong

Equalities Officer: Lisa Rull

Communications Officer: Will Paterson

Social Media Officer: Peter Woods

Green Officer: Alan Barker

Ordinary members without portfolio:

Cecilia Testa

Marta Aloi

Peter Rutherford

Nabil Fadai

Hannah Thuraisingam Robbins

In solidarity now and always. 

Yours, 

Lopa

PS. The press release:

https://uonucu.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Ballot-April-2026-Press-Release.docx.pdf

Two upcoming meetings

Email sent to members on 8th April 2026. Minor modifications have been made, i.e. removing zoom links and email addresses for security.

Dear members,

Hope you are doing well and enjoying the sun, and a final reminder to vote in the ballot if you haven’t already. Just a quick email with key information about two upcoming meetings (Zoom links can be found in original email).

Tuesday 21st April – 12-1

In this members’ meeting we will be discussing the result of the ballot and what this means for the next steps in our dispute. Alongside this we will also be voting on our branch delegates for UCU national congress. If you would be interested in representing the branch at congress in Harrogate (Wednesday 27 May – Friday 29 May 2026) then do be in touch, we currently have one spare space before we hit our quota of four delegates.

Friday 1st May – 12-1.30

This is our branch AGM. As I previously mentioned this is a chance to recap on the year that was, get annual updates from key officers, and elect our committee for the upcoming year. We are still taking nominations for any of the roles on Branch Committee, and if you do have any questions at all about joining do send me an email. We will also use this meeting to continue discussions about the dispute and what is happening with Phase 2 of Future Nottingham.

We will of course send out reminders for each meeting closer to the time.

Take care

Promotion consultation form and update on Friday’s meeting

Email sent to members on Monday 26th January 2026.


Dear members,

It was fantastic to see and hear from so many of you on Friday. For those unable to make it, the main topics we covered were as follows:

Vote in the indicative ballot

Make sure you vote in this if you haven’t already. Reminder emails for non-voters will be coming this week (do check your spam and it is sent from: ‘UoN UCU Branch Committee’/yoursay@ucu.org.uk). It takes 30 seconds and a strong turnout is vital.

Update on Future Nottingham Phase 2 and new dispute

We have had our first dispute meeting with management, as well as a series of other meetings around Phase 2. As you will probably have seen, the timeline for Phase 2 has been pushed back slightly, with formal consultation on the draft business case to start on May the 6th. 

We continue to push back on the disastrous proposals, especially those around staff student ratio, and have a series of more detailed meetings with management over the coming weeks. Given the wide-ranging nature of the proposed changes – course closures, SSR, reduction in research time, the threat to technical staff etc – it is clear that our new and more encompassing dispute is crucial.

Promotion ‘consultation’

We also discussed the regrettable way in which the university has paused the promotion process while they decide on next steps. To be clear once more, we were not consulted about this pause despite the way it has seemingly been framed. As part of pushing back against their proposal not to run the promotion process this round we have been gathering feedback from members, and had a really productive meeting on Friday. If you want to provide your input to the consultation – either due to your own promotion being paused or because you spent time supporting other people developing theirs – please consider filling in this anonymous form.

In solidarity

Nick (on behalf of the branch committee)