Campaigns

UCU actively campaigns on behalf of staff, both at the OU and sector-wide. You can find more about UCU's work on the national campaigns page, or learn more about our branch campaigns below:

Our Regional Official, Branch President, committees, and reps primarily focus on issues that directly affect OU staff at work, such as pay, university policy and pensions. The branch also provides a community meeting place for volunteers to form groups that campaign on wider social justice and political topics.

Education: it's ours

The UK higher education (HE) sector is facing a deep and escalating crisis, driven by chronic underfunding, poor governance, and an ineffective regulatory model. Real-terms funding per student in England has fallen by around 35% since 2015–16, The average academic has lost 20% in real-terms pay over the last 15 years, and 64% of HE staff said their workload was unsustainable. 

Nationally, UCU are calling for:

  • Immediate increased and sustainable funding for higher education.
  • Protection for university jobs, pay and pensions.
  • A commitment to transform the long-term funding model.
  • Fairer approach to international students.
  • Stronger governance of the sector.

We can only win this as a strong, active, fighting union, both here at the OU and across the UK. Sign up for campaign updates, read UCU's policy proposals, take a look at the solidarity map to see what's going on at universities near you, and download organising and branch-building materials for reps and activists, all at the Education: It's Ours campaign website.

AI in Higher Education

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is rapidly changing the way we work, teach, and learn. As a union, it’s our job to make sure that the voice of workers is listened to, and to resist uses of AI that harm staff and students, or undermine the quality of the OU’s teaching.

The branch's AI working group is building a campaign to tackle these issues at the OU, in concert with what UCU and other unions are doing nationally.

For more information about our response, and ways support the campaign, see the AI in Higher Education page.

Divesting from Israel and the arms trade

Our branch, alongside the OU Palestine Solidarity Group and OU Friends of Palestine student group, is calling on the OU to remove its investments in companies that are complicit in Israel’s ongoing genocide and occupation in Palestine, and to remove arms companies from its student-facing careers events. We believe that the OU has a legal and moral duty to divest from Israel and the arms trade, and that it cannot fulfill its mission of social justice without doing so.

Sign our petition to call on the OU to divest. If you want to get involved with our Divestment working group, email [email protected].

You can read more about this campaign on the Divestment campaign page.

Support the OU Club

UCU supports the OU club, which contributes to the civic life of the university, staff wellbeing, and a work-leisure balance, by providing social and recreational facilities that connect colleagues and retired staff from different areas of the OU. Affiliated clubs cover everything from potholing and table tennis, to rock and blues bands and film and theatre societies. At Walton Hall, the OU club has a BYOB social on Thursday nights with staff bands and resident DJs. You can sign up to their email list on the OU club webpage.

Ideas welcome

If you’ve got an idea for a new campaign, you might want to join one of our working groups. They can provide support to set it up, whether that’s feedback, experience, or help to share the load.

Past campaigns

Our leaflets page contains the leaflets and picket line leaflets we have handed out in previous industrial action disputes, and our current 1.3FTE campaign.