Motions archive 2022

Our branch passed the following motions in 2022.

OU UCU motions passed at the Extraordinary General meeting on 16th November 2022

Motion 1 - HARDSHIP FUND

This General Meeting agrees to the setting up of a local hardship fund to supplement the national UCU fighting fund during any 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 pay deductions.

This meeting authorises:

The transfer of an initial sum of £50,000 from local branch funds into the hardship fund and asks the Branch Committee to set up a process for members to access the fund in accordance with national UCU guidance.
The Branch Committee to seek to increase the hardship fund further as needed by transferring additional branch funds and asking for donations.

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 - JOB CUTS AT BIRKBECK

This union notes:

The announced threat of 140 redundancies at Birkbeck, 84 academic and 55 adminis-trative staff
That the majority of those academic staff threatened work in Arts and Humanities sub-jects.
The response of Birkbeck UCU, which includes this statement: “Birkbeck has a proud history of reaching students who otherwise would not enter higher education. Sacking 140 staff, including up to one in four teaching staff, threatens to trash that history. The cuts would severely harm student learning and jeopardise the university's commitment to social mobility and lifelong learning.”

This union believes:

That all threats of this nature are to be opposed
That this threat is part of wider assault on Arts and Humanities subjects, and that this weakens Higher Education as a whole
That staff within an institution whose goals parallel our own deserve our special sup-port

This union resolves:

1. To make an immediate £1,000 donation to the campaign to save these jobs

2. To maintain close contacts with Birkbeck UCU, and offer ongoing support to their campaign to save jobs and the goals of the institution.

Motion 3 - STRIKE TOGETHER, CAMPAIGN TOGETHER

This union notes:

The announced UCU strike dates in November coincide with strikes called by CWU.
That while currently involved in talks, the RMT is also conducting a re-ballot for strike action
That the RCN has balloted for strike action for the first time in its history
That the NEU is currently conducting a consultative ballot for national strike action.

This union believes:

That coordinated and concerted action strengthens our collective claims over pay, pensions and working conditions.
That after 14 years of austerity and cuts to public services, and the current cost of liv-ing crisis, enough is enough
That “the longer the picket line, the shorter the action”

This union resolves:

To urge and encourage our branch members, wherever possible, to attend our own picket lines
That where this is not possible, to urge and encourage our branch members to visit other UCU picket lines and to send the branch mailbox selfies for a collective display on the branch website
To to invite representatives of other unions striking or balloting for strike action to visit our picket lines and, wherever possible, to encourage members to reciprocate.

OU UCU motions passed at the General meeting on 21st October 2022

Motion 1 for UCU's Climate and Ecological Emergency Committee: Curriculum and Teaching Careers in the CEE

Meeting believes

That many teaching in Higher and Further Education are concerned about the Climate and Ecological Emergency.
That many members of UCU seek guidance and support from their union in how to change the curriculum, and teaching careers, so as to better address the Climate and Ecological Emergency. This includes factors other than the employers, such as the UK Professional Standards Framework, AdvanceHE, Learned Societies, and the poli-cy of government(s).
That potential members of UCU would join the union if it is seen to take proactive, high-profile steps on Climate and Ecological Emergency education.

Meeting resolves

That UCU map the relevant stakeholders and factors, then develop a campaign to in-fluence them.
The incoming Climate and Ecological Emergency Committee should play a central role in developing the campaign.

Motion 2 for UCU's Climate and Ecological Emergency Committee: Building UCU’s organising and bargaining capacity; growing green rep cohorts

Meeting Believes

That the strength of a union lies in its grassroots organising, both in branches and na-tionally.
That UCU action on sustainability and the Climate and Ecological Emergency (CEE) has proven popular amongst members (including new member recruitment), and in making links between other teaching and student unions.
UCU’s activities are key to highlighting and framing the role of tertiary education and research in addressing the climate emergency and its impacts, by promoting educa-tion and research as a necessary part of movement from unsustainable high-carbon to sustainable green systems.
That some areas of Climate and Ecological Emergency organising have encountered barriers. For example, many branches do not have an Environmental or Green repre-sentative, whilst the groundswell of support for these issues has rarely been translated into branch or national negotiating machinery and claims.

Meeting Resolves

That the incoming CEE committee investigate the strengths and barriers of UCU’s cur-rent CEE work in motivating members and potential members.
That the committee gather evidence and make recommendations, at or before the next annual meeting, on how to practically develop UCU’s organising and bargaining power on CEE issues.
That the committee practically support efforts to grow the cohort of UCU Green Rep-resentatives.

Motion 3 for UCU's Climate and Ecological Emergency Committee: Developing UCU’s demands to employers; feeding into the national claims

Meeting notes

A primary role of trade unions is to effect change through industrial negotiations and bargaining with employers and their representative organisations, such as UUK.
UCU has committed to developing national joint claims in HE and FE, see Congress 2022 motion 60. These national claims are made every year, specifying the demands from unions that are made to all employers at a nationwide scale (rather than just at local branches).
Any national claims developed will have to support previously agreed policy on envi-ronmental issues, but also on policy, strategy and campaigns such as the Four Fights, Respect FE and UCU Rising. See https://www.ucu.org.uk/motions
The processes for developing and agreeing the national claims, including with other unions in joint negotiating committees, are (perpetually) ongoing.
The 2022-23 claim is currently under development, so CEE considerations or contri-butions from the CEEC need to be incorporated from the outset.

Meeting Resolves

That the CEE committee should proactively make links with the FE and HE national negotiators, supporting them to develop and negotiate CEE elements of the national claims to be put to the 2023 Congress.

OU UCU motions passed at the General meeting on 21st September 2022

This Branch utterly condemns the heavy-handed and unacceptable policing of respectable republican protests surrounding the recent monarchical events.

The use of state repression to punish dissenting views is totally unacceptable and a threat to pluralist democracy in the UK

OU UCU motions passed at the General meeting on 21st July 2022

Motion 1

This branch believes:

That good communications are essential in supporting any strategy to bring in new activist members.

Therefore resolves:

In order to support the work of the newly formed Communications Group, we should trial the role of Communications Lead on the Executive Committee. In this period, their role would be to work with the Comms Group and to support other Exec Committee officers, particularly the President and Honorary Secretary, and the Branch Administrator, in issuing timely internal and external communication to members, and managing the production of appropriate newsletters to staff groups, and social media for the branch. This role will be reviewed after a year.

Motion 2 - Stress, Workload, and Wellbeing at the OU

This branch notes the recent results of the Staff Barometer Survey, the impact of stress on all staff categories, and the fact that excessive workload and associated problems have not improved since this branch’s Workload Survey in 2018.

We call upon the Open University to:

Reinstate the joint union/management Workload Working Group which the university stopped in 2019. This group must be supported to work in conjunction with H&S, People Services, unit budget holders and others to investigate and address excessive workloads and stress
Conduct an immediate university-wide H&S stress risk assessment covering all staff cate-gories and PGR students no later than September 2022
Working with the unions, develop a remedial action plan with measurable objectives for any areas of concern from this risk assessment across all staff categories and PGRs no later than the end of 2022
Immediately convene negotiations with UCU on homeworking and hybrid working, includ-ing but not limited to equipment, allowances, residency, and site use
Undertake a detailed review of the Staff Tutor/SEM workload and tasks (as requested by UCU repeatedly since 2018 and within the recommendations of the trade union H&S in-spection of December 2020), and urgently implement remedial action to alleviate stress and workload in this role in the short- medium- and long-term
Agree and run a joint project with UCU to investigate excessive workload and stress for academic-related staff and barriers to career development and promotion, with a commit-ment to implementing the recommendations
Agree and run a joint project with UCU on reviewing a) Associate Lecturer workload norms and b) other academic workload norms as used in the Academic Workload Man-agement system (AWM) with a view to establishing a realistic, consistent and fair ap-proach for all faculty staff
Provide parity of annual leave entitlement across the university and in particular equality between Associate Lecturers and other academic staff
Agree to explore the possibility of a 35-hour working week in line with the national pay claim, and also to explore the findings from national and international pilots of the 4-day work week.

Motion 3 - Staff Retention and the Cost-of-Living Crisis

This branch notes that the employers’ organisation UCEA and the OU have refused to make a pay offer in line with inflation, after real-terms pay losses since 2009. At present the pay offer stands at 3% for 2022-2023 while inflation is 9.1% CPI at June 2022 as prices continue to rise. This branch notes that the VC highlights fairness and staff wellbeing as key university values. We note further that other universities have agreed to make one-off payments in 2021/22 to help staff with the rise in energy and living costs.

We call upon the university to:

Provide a £2,000 payment to all staff to ease the cost of living (NB This should include stipended PGR students in line with UCU’s policy that PGR students should be treated as employees)
Explore with the unions the possibility of raising the grade boundaries in the Pay and Grading Framework, to the potential benefit of all staff categories
Re-establish the Fixed Term Contracts working group (stopped by the university in 2020) with a remit to prevent redundancies across all staff categories and to reduce casualisation, including renewed institutional commitment to converting fixed term roles to permanency
Commit to working with UCU on a minimum fixed-term contract duration of 2 years as standard
Immediate publication of a detailed breakdown of the ethnicity/race pay gap by staff category and commitment to annual publication of the disability pay gap data
Joint working with UCU to develop action plans with measurable and timely objectives for reducing to zero within 4 years the gender, ethnicity/race and disability pay gaps
Commit to replacement of the GEM and Special Awards (given inequitable outcomes by staff category, part-time status and many other characteristics for years) by a fairer reward approach covering all staff categories.

OU UCU motions passed at the Annual General meeting on 7th June 2022

Motion 1 - Creating and maintaining a branch for everybody and which is representative of the OU population

This meeting believes:

Academic-related, Associate Lecturer and Academic staff are all eligible and valued members of the Open University branch of UCU (OUBUCU)
All eligible staff should be equally supported by OUBUCAll eligible staff categories should have equal opportunities to influence OUBUCU strategy and policy
A diverse OUBUCU is a stronger branch.

This meeting resolves:

OUBUCU should campaign publicly on local Open University and national UCU issues which resonate with all eligible staff categories and share details of successes, which would demonstrate the inclusiveness of UCU and its value to all members and poten-tial members.
All eligible staff should be provided with mechanisms to engage with OUBUCU fairly and equally
OUBUCU should proactively seek to widen and diversify its membership across all eligible OU staff categories.

Motion 2 - Towards institutional sustainability at the OU

This meeting believes

Sustainability has a wider meaning than its environmental connotations
It is incumbent upon us all to incorporate sustainability practices into our lives, at work and at home.
Sustainability should be enacted through institutional policies and initiatives.

This meeting resolves:

To produce a branch definition of institutional sustainability – to include reference to the environment, climate change, health and well-being, travel (but not limited to these examples).
To encourage OU leadership to publicly and actively share institutional data related to the results and performance of existing sustainability initiatives
To use this data and the branch definition to publicly campaign for institutional policies that reflect the full scope institutional sustainability.

OU UCU motion passed at the General meeting on 4th May 2022

Motion 1 - Donations and solidarity for UCU branches taking action

This branch notes that a number of HE and FE branches will be taking action in the coming months and authorises the Branch Committee to make appropriate donations to local hardship funds.

This branch also notes that some HE branches will soon be taking action over the Four Fights and (depending on HESC decisions) over USS. These branches will be taking action over national disputes on behalf of branches which cannot take action this time as a result of anti-trade union legislation.

This meeting asks the branch executive committee to consider making donations up to a total amount similar to that we would expect to spend if the OU UCU branch were taking action.

This meeting also asks the executive committee to organise support for branches taking action by publicising and supporting their rallies and other events, fund raising, and other practical support.

OU UCU motions passed at the General meeting on 4th March 2022

Higher Education Careers Services: informing students and supporting the low carbon economy - for the HE Sector Conference

HE conference notes:

Impartial advice and guidance offered by HE careers services is valuable for students and wider society.
Careers services promoting roles in oil, gas and mining industries is likely contributing to the global climate crisis, and leading students into careers which will decline as we decarbonise our economies.
Congress 2017 passed a motion resolving to “work with members affected by a move to a low carbon economy, other trade unions, and environmentalists” to campaign for a Just Transition.

HE conference resolves:

To work actively with People & Planet to publicly support the student-led Fossil Free Careers campaign, calling on HE careers services to align their operations with sustainability considerations, particularly by declining to promote oil, gas and mining companies.
To produce a website statement about this motion and UCU support for this campaign and amplify the calls to action of it.

Strengthening organising by constructing radical national claims; climate emergency anti-casualisation - for UCU Congress

Congress believes:

National Joint Claims’ power to secure improvements beyond pay uplifts, and so to recruit and organise members, is under-recognised.
Climate emergency anti-casualisation is an area of potential transformation
That precarious employment is often carbon intensive, featuring significant commuting and home moves.
That decarbonisation will negatively affect some jobs.

Congress resolves that UCU:

Exemplify collective bargaining by developing and submitting a Green New Deal national claim to FE and HE negotiating forums, including:

A Just Transition Commission in HE and FE, including transition planning and job (role) frameworks
Sustainable, just work providing stability for employers and employees to adapt, and a roadmap out of precarity
Skills transition; paid time for sustainability CPD, including on casualised and outsourced contracts
Trade Union environment representatives’ facility time
Use Trades Union Congress structures to promote multi-union campaigning for a Just Transition.

Strengthening UCU's work amongst research-only employees - for HE Sector Conference

Conference believes:

Precarity disrupts members on research- only contracts from being more active and experienced members, compounded by moving employer or locality.
That casualisation on research- only contracts is high, with 67% being fixed-term contracts, whilst many ‘open-ended contracts’ are ‘subject-to-funding’.

Conference resolves that UCU produce:

a strategy for influencing research funders (including government) to focus on building employers and structures that create permanency guidance on how members in Learned Societies might influence them to oppose casualisation
a pilot initiative for UCU to support members’ seeking to integrate solidarity economy activities into research work, such as linking to UCU-aligned organisations requiring research, or Community Wealth Building as impact.
bitesize political education, covering UCU activities, structures and ‘everyday’ actions
branch guidance on securing paid time (‘facility time’) for all contract types, or as additional pay for members who cannot receive paid time off.

OU UCU motion passed at the General meeting on 17th January 2022

Proposed motion for submission to the Annual Meeting of Members on Casualised Contracts, 26 February 2022 - Strengthening organising by constructing radical national claims; climate emergency anti-casualisation

This Meeting believes:

National Joint Claims’ power to secure improvements beyond pay uplifts, and so to recruit and organise members, is under-recognised
Climate emergency anti-casualisation is an area of potential transformation#
That precarious tertiary education employment is often carbon intensive, featuring significant long-distance commuting and frequent home moves.

This Meeting resolves that UCU:

Exemplify how collective bargaining can address the climate emergency, and through anti-casualisation

Negotiate for climate justice and a Just Transition in the National Joint Claim by the Joint Negotiating Committee for Higher Education Staff (JNCHES), including:

Strategic national agreement on transition planning and job (role) frameworks, preventing stranded employment or dead-end career pathways
Anti-casualisation, providing long term stability for employers and employees to adapt
Reduced precarity, including employer support and paid time for retraining

Decide if such agreement is best achieved by a joint JNCHES working groups, a time limited commission, or other means.

Develop analogous measures in FE.

Use Trades Union Congress structures to organise multi-union campaigning for a Just Transition, including educational components.