Get help

UCU provides different routes to getting help, depending upon the type of problem. If it is a personal or individual problem you can receive confidential support from a Caseworker. A shared or collective problem would go to your local rep. Health and Safety issues go to reps who have received specialist training. Contact ucu@open.ac.uk if you’re not sure or have a look at out list of reps. For financial matters, try the OU Credit Union.

A lot of questions involve establishing what the university’s policy is, and whether those policies need changing. For personnel matters the policies are stored in the People Services A-Z, with similar archives in Academic Services for Student policies, and academic governance in the University Secretary’s Office.

Individual workplace problems

If you are having problems at work, you can talk to one of our trained caseworkers for advice.  We can help with all kinds of problems, including (but not restricted to): bullying & harassment, unreasonable workloads, problems with a manager, sickness policy, performance monitoring including CDSA, probation, disability issues, disciplinary cases, grievances, redundancies and severance. 

You decide on the level of help you need: you may be just looking for advice before you tackle the problem yourself, or you may want your caseworker to take a more active role, e.g. raising concerns with HR or representing you in a formal hearing.  When necessary, our caseworkers can also consult full-time UCU officials for expert and legal advice.  Please note that legal advice has to be requested via your branch caseworker. 

We would always advise you to contact us as soon as you are aware that there is a problem, in many cases early advice and action can prevent the problem getting worse or at the very least strengthen your case. We can talk to you by phone, email or in person.

How to get help: please complete our Casework request form (updated July 2024) and send it to ucu@open.ac.uk, or phone our branch administrator.  The details you give will help us to link you to a caseworker with the most appropriate experience for your issue.  All casework is treated confidentially, and we are careful to match members with caseworkers from a different area of the OU to avoid any conflict of interest.

We have created a document which explains branch casework and provides other sources of support - view document.

Please note – we are not able to give advice to non-members.  Once you join we can help with advice and a caseworker, but we are not able to offer legal representation for any issue which begins in the first 3 months of your membership or started before you joined.

email: ucu@open.ac.uk
telephone: 01908 6(53069)
visit: Room 015, Wilson C Block, Walton Hall campus

Shared workplace problems

If you are concerned about an issue which is also affecting others in your area, you can raise this with your local Rep (go to our Reps/contacts page), who will liaise with the Branch to find the best way of helping you.  Alternatively if you don’t think this is an appropriate route for you, you can contact our branch administrator.

Health and Safety issues

Anyone with Health and Safety concerns should contact the branch. Our H&S support is not limited to members. The role of trade union Health and Safety representatives is to address all matters of health, safety and welfare at work. This includes work-related stress, venue/lab safety, and IT use. 

The role of trade union Health and Safety representatives is not limited to safety but includes making representation to employers (in our case the OU) on general matters affecting health, safety and welfare at work. Much of this is done through raising issues informally, as well as via formal representation by the trade union reps on the university's Health and Safety Committee. 

H&S in higher education often relates to work-related stress, venue/lab safety, and IT use. 

Trade Union H&S reps have the right to reasonable paid time for training and to do the work of representing staff in the workplace (not just members). If you're interested in learning more about becoming a TU H&S Rep, please contact the branch office at ucu@open.ac.uk.

The main publication by the Trades Union Congress (TUC) for trade union safety reps is the “brown book”. The brown book outlines the purpose and functions of TU reps and how workplace safety committees work, further information on the TUC website. 

Another important document is a publication by the Health and Safety Executive about employers consulting employees on matters to do with health and safety, visit the H & S Executive website. 

Information on employment issues

If you are just looking for information, there are a number of sources available to you:

The national UCU Support Centre website has answers to frequently raised questions, and news of recent developments in employment law.

All staff in Higher Education can use services provided by the Education Support partnership (formerly called Recourse).  

The Open University also offers a number of wellbeing resources to all staff on the People Services intranet (link for OU staff only).

Open Saver: The Open University Employees' Credit Union

Open Saver is a credit union, membership of which is exclusive to employees of The Open University. It is a small, not-for-profit and co-operative ‘bank’, set up and run by OU employees for OU employees. UCU is not directly linked to Open Saver, but we share many members and values. To find out more visit their intranet page (OU staff only) or there is a web page here.