News

Pay deductions, OU UCU's hardship fund, and local subscriptions
We expect that by now most deductions from pay for strike action over the pensions dispute will have been made, so the local hardship fund process has now closed. We are not closing the hardship bank account entirely because there is the possibility that further industrial action may be necessary: the pensions disagreement has not yet been resolved, and there is still much uncertainty about job losses and potential involuntary redundancies at the OU.

Members will have received an email recently from Sally Hunt, the UCU General Secretary, indicating that at the recent Congress there were walk-outs by staff of the union. The staff objected to two motions that were to be debated. One was to censure the General Secretary and one was to call for the resignation of the General Secretary. The General Secretary is a Unite member and Unite were of the view that Congress could not debate these motions.

A member consultation on the final offer has opened on 6th June 2018 and it will close on 27th June.

Please make sure you use your vote and we are holding an all members meeting on 12th June at 1pm.  The meeting will be in Seminar Room 6, 2nd floor, at the back of the OU Library, Walton Hall or you can take part by Skype. Please email ucu@open.ac.uk for the Skype meeting link.

There is further information on the UCU website or here are the pay rises HE staff have received in previous years.

This message is to bring you up to date with some of the issues that the OU UCU branch is currently dealing with. We will be contacting you again, probably in a week or so, with an update on the Curriculum Review and its implications for staff who are affected.
 

We were pleased to be able to have a joint Unions stand at the OU's Charter day on 8th May - we shared the stand with the Open University branch of UNISON and the Open University Chapel of the National Union of Journalists.

There are photos on our Facebook page at this address: www.facebook.com/oubucu.

Trade Unions have been part of the OU Community since the beginning in 1969, the OU will be celebrating its 50th birthday in 2019.

Our UCU Regional Official, Lydia Richards, was interviewed on the Today Programme, BBC Radio 4 on 23rd March 2018.

The audio is on https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09vyw3z

Today Programme 23/03/2018 8.46am

We promised summary notes from our national UCU meetings on 14 March. This was meant as a report on  the major events of the early week around USS so that we could answer questions. But we know many people are not using OU email during the strike, so this is not the end of the conversation! Here's an update and we intend to have our next all members' meeting on 26th March.

UCU members will have have received an email tonight (12th March) from Sally Hunt regarding the ACAS talks. The negotiators have come back with a proposal that we assume they wish to put to members.
https://www.ucu.org.uk/media/9300/Agreement-reached-between-UCU-and-UUK-under-the-auspices-of-ACAS/pdf/UCU_UUK_agreement_at_ACAS_12_March_Final.pdf
 

Thanks to concerted pressure from both the UCU branch executive and individual members the VC has agreed to a meeting with the Branch president Lesley Kane and Vice President Caitlin Adams on Monday (12th) next week. This is a step forward and provides an opportunity for the VC to listen and reconsider the approach taken by the University over the dispute.

Congress is the supreme policy making body of the union.

If any branch member wants to suggest a motion for the OU UCU branch to put forward to Congress or to HE Conference, please send it to ucu@open.ac.uk by close of business on Friday 9th March, or email ucu@open.ac.uk if you have an idea for a motion and want help in drafting it. 

Motions that are specific to Higher Education are usually considered appropriate for HE Conference.