Motions archive 2021

Our branch passed the following motions in 2021.

OU UCU motions passed at the General meeting on 20th October 2021

This General Meeting agrees to the setting up of a local hardship fund to supplement the national UCU fighting fund during any industrial action over USS pensions or over pay this academic year. The purpose of the fund will be to support branch members who face hardship, as a result of lost pay during the industrial action. 

This meeting authorises: 

1. The transfer of an initial sum of £50,000 from local branch funds into the hardship fund and asks the branch executive to set up a process for members to access the fund in accordance with national UCU guidance. 
2. The branch committee to seek to increase the hardship fund further by asking for donations, to the extent that this is practically possible.

Any money remaining in the hardship fund at the end of the action should be transferred back into our local branch funds, leaving a token amount to keep the account active.

Motion 2

This meeting notes:

That like the OU, Goldsmiths has in the past prided itself on a commitment to lifelong learning and to broaden access to higher education.  

• The ongoing threat of redundancies amongst academic and professional services staff at Goldsmiths.

That this is one of several ongoing attacks on arts and humanities funding by British universities.

That by denying the Goldsmiths UCU branch (GUCU) officers proper payment for facility time, Goldsmiths management are undermining the legally-recognised collective consultation process.

That GUCU has just secured an overwhelming mandate for industrial action in an informal ballot.

That other institutions, notably Chester and Liverpool, have fought off schemes for compulsory redundancies via the threat of industrial action.

It resolves:

• To declare publicly our solidarity with our comrades at Goldsmiths.
• To ask our members to support GUCU’s online #NoJobCuts campaign and
• to approve the donation of £500 from OUBUCU branch funds to support their campaigning.

 

OU UCU motion passed at the General meeting on 23rd September 2021

Motion on ALCCP briefing

This meeting notes the proposed misuse of AL Academic Currency and Professional Development time, and low overall pay for new ALs starting this October and considers these to be unacceptable.

Overwriting the self-directed part of AL Academic Currency time with other work is equivalent to the cancellation of study leave for academic staff. Overwriting the agreed Professional Development and Academic Currency time is equivalent to asking ALs not to read course materials that they are about to teach. Crucially, overwriting either the AL-led Academic Currency time or the Agreed Professional Development and Academic Currency time with Mandatory training is contrary to the purpose of the former two and directly contrary to the negotiated policy on 'AL Professional Development and Academic Currency' which states that neither the 6 days pro-rata for AL-led AC time nor the 1 + 5 days pro rata for Agreed PD and AC time are to be used for Mandatory training (e.g., IT training, Prevent, etc.)

The OU made a commitment that no AL would be financially worse off due to the delay in implementing the new AL contract. This is breached by overwriting Professional Development and Academic Currency time with other work. This especially applies to new ALs in 21J since three half days' induction are for IT training which they should be paid for since they are unlikely to have any spare FTE.

When it comes to module briefings, if these are taken to be included in the 1+ 5 days of Agreed PD and AC time, it would entail that the majority of ALs have no time left for the rest of the year to engage in further professional development. If anything further is needed (attending SD days, getting up to speed on a new module, etc.), this would need to be paid for over and above their FTE unless they have other unused FTE. As things stand, there is no indicated intention to cover this with additional payments.

This branch supports the negotiators in pursuing this matter through negotiation, arbitration, or by lodging a dispute if necessary.

View the ALCCP briefing.
View the agreed policy balloted on in 2019.

This policy is cited in Section 19 of the new AL Terms and Conditions, and the current AL Terms and Conditions also have caveats on the use of staff development time in Section 9c.

OU UCU motion passed at the General meeting on 17th August 2021

This branch notes the ongoing dispute over the USS valuation, plans developed by UUK for unjustified and substantial cuts to pension benefits, and the refusal of USS to divest from fossil fuels.

Kings College London UCU and other branches are fundraising to explore legal action against the USS Trustees on several potential grounds (see: Save university pensions, and save the planet.  This initiative has support from UCU negotiators and is intended to complement any action undertaken by national UCU. 

The branch calls upon the Executive Committee to publicise this fundraising effort to members and to make an initial contribution of £500 to this fund.

OU UCU motion passed at the General meeting on 22nd July 2021

This meeting notes:

1. The pandemic and lockdowns have focused attention on homeworking, and on associated costs and benefits
2. UCU has developed new policy on homeworking during the past year
3. The OU Homeworking Policy and associated guidance was never negotiated with UCU
4. The OU Homeworking Policy and guidance focus on cost savings to the employee that result from homeworking rather than the savings made by the employer on building maintenance, heating and lighting etc, and devolve the cost of health and safety equipment on homeworkers.

This meeting asks the UCU branch executive to open discussions and negotiations with management on the OU homeworking policy and guidance.

 

OU UCU motion passed at the Annual General meeting on 3rd June 2021

This meeting notes:

• the ongoing threat of redundancies amongst academic, academic-related and professional services staff at the University of Leicester (for 26 of these staff notices of redundancy were issued on the 11th May), 
• the enormous stress and anxiety caused not only amongst ‘affected’ colleagues but also those deemed to be ‘unaffected’, 
• the contradictory way in which the senior management team have managed the process 
• the evidence that, in the School of Business in particular, management’s strategy is best explained by union busting rather than anything else (Hawkins and Routledge, 2021). 

It resolves: 

1. to endorse formally UCU’s greylisting of Leicester, announced on the 4th May, 
2. to declare publicly our solidarity with comrades there and 
3. to approve the donation of £1000 from branch funds to support their industrial action. 

Reference:

Hawkins, S. and Routledge, J. ‘What were they thinking? A statistical analysis of the arguments surrounding the ULSB controversy’, view online.

 

OU UCU motion passed at the Extraordinary General meeting on 27th April 2021

Motion - Staff Tutor's/Student Experience Manager's Claim

This meeting endorses the claim for Staff Tutors and Student Experience Managers in the appendix to the EGM agenda, and asks our Executive committee and ST/SEM negotiators to negotiate with the university on the basis of this claim, and to do what is necessary to pursue it.

 

OU UCU motions passed at the Extraordinary General meeting on 31st March 2021

Motion 1 - Proceed with claim

The meeting endorses the attached claim for mitigation and compensation for Associate Lecturers following the decision by VCE to delay implementation of the new AL contract.

This meeting authorises the OU UCU negotiators and executive committee to negotiate with management on the basis of this claim, to make any necessary additions, and to enter a dispute with the university in the event of failure to agree, and if necessary to take the initial steps required to organise legal industrial action.

This meeting also authorises the OU UCU executive committee and ST/SEM negotiators to draft a claim on behalf of staff tutors, addressing workload and related stress, and the need for proper systems and support, and to take any necessary measures to pursue it.

This meeting authorises the executive committee to use up to £20,000 of OU branch funds in support of the claims referred to in this motion.
 

Motion 2 - Support for AL Members in Case of Strike Action

This meeting notes there is massive support for the ongoing decasualisation process among all categories of OU staff. OUBUCU members in all roles are dismayed at the news that the timetable towards the new contract is being abandoned, with often severe financial consequences to individuals. Members wish to demonstrate practical solidarity with those who are forced to threaten industrial action in response. An injury to one is an injury to all. 

This meeting asks the Branch Committee to establish an active appeal for the Hardship Fund, in order to make it clear to AL members that they will receive financial support to compensate for hardship resulting from any industrial action, should this be necessary in support of the new contract and the 'no detriment' principle. 

This appeal will be aimed at non-AL members in the branch and could involve pledges to the branch Hardship Fund that will be activated only should industrial action prove necessary over this issue. 

 

Motion 3 - Vote of No Confidence in the University Secretary

This meeting notes that the University Secretary of the Open University, as chair of the AL Contract Delivery Board, on Monday 21 March 2021 announced a delay to the implementation of the AL Contract after more than two years of work.  As context this meeting notes:

• Failure to implement the new contract means the loss of job security and thousands of pounds for over 4000 associate lecturers, many of whom took significant financial deci-sions on the basis of commitments from the university
• A key reason given was that systems were not in place for delivery, which constitutes a comprehensive institutional failure for which the Delivery Board and Vice Chancellor’s Executive are responsible
• There was no contingency planning in place for stopping the contract implementation (the legality of which decision is still in question)
• There was no notification to the union in advance of this decision so no negotiation with the union took place
• Because the proposed mitigation efforts (dated Wednesday 24 March 2021) were not discussed with the union, they do not adequately address job security or financial loss - for instance owing to the omission of Tuition Related Activities which make up the FTE of hundreds of ALs 
• In communicating this decision there was no consideration of the duty of care to staff, whether those directly affected or those attempting to handle the practical and emotional fallout of this decision.

Given these failures this meeting states that it has no confidence in the University Secretary.  There must be a formal review of VCE actions and decision-making that have led to this situation.