News

Dear Mr Horrocks,
 
Thank you for your recent comments on OU news regarding the ongoing USS pensions dispute, and the industrial action that UCU are taking in response to the proposed changes.
 
However, we are profoundly concerned and disappointed with some quite serious inaccuracies in your public position, which puts you at odds with both UCU’s financial assessments of USS, and increasing numbers of sector VC’s who have accepted the current USS valuation is, at best, deeply flawed.
 

21st February 2018
 
As we sit on the brink of an industrial action that nobody wants, it is not too late for the Open University to take a leadership position in averting these strikes. We urge you to consider the recent comments of Anthony Forster, the Vice Chancellor of Essex University (see http://blogs.essex.ac.uk/vc/)

We are asking members to email the VC to protest about the refusal to re-schedule the Senate workshop on 22nd February for a non-strike day. Please feel free to copy in the university secretary Keith Zimmerman. 

There is suggested text below explaining the reasons for this, and please feel free to add to it or modify it.

Below is some suggested text for a letter/email to your MP and a link to resources for finding out about your MP and writing to him/her.

You may want to modify the suggested text below with your own experiences and local knowledge. If you are writing to a Labour MP you might mention that the Open University is one of Labour’s enduring achievements, now under threat from marketisation of Higher Education.

Copy of an email to all OU UCU members, 22 January 2018

This email is to ensure that all OU UCU members are fully aware of proposed changes to learning and teaching being discussed at Senate on 24th January 2018.

Senate will be discussing a set of Learning and Teaching Principles that will drive an implementation plan.

We wish our members and all at the OU a good and well deserved holiday.   

A number of you have contacted us about the VC's message of 11th December, and we would like to share some points made by UCU reps and other members.

UCU have added some Frequently asked questions over the USS dispute.

Under pressure from UCU, talks with Universities UK are happening on 14th and 15th December. However the employers still refuse to meet beyond 18 December so please post back your ballot paper if you haven't already done so.

FAQs on the UCU website: www.ucu.org.uk/uss-dispute-questions

Voting papers have been sent out today (29th November 2017), in the ballot for industrial action over proposals to end guaranteed pension payments in the University Superannuation Scheme (USS).

If you have not received your paper ballot paper by Monday 4th December use the UCU online form to order a replacement.

The results of our election for a new Branch President were announced at the AGM on Tuesday 14th November, Lesley Kane is our new President. The branch presented Pauline Collins with a leaving card and gift and thanked her for her time as Branch President for the past 5 years.

View the Returning Officer's report

New Executive Committee is now on the Exec Committee page.

The following text is on the OU intranet about the negotiations towards a new Associate Lecturer contract, 26 October 2017.

The Management and Trades Union sides met on 3 October 2017 and have agreed to aim to conclude negotiations on a new contract for Associate Lecturers by Easter 2018. The key aim has been to provide job security without the continual interviewing and re-interviewing as modules change.