News

Arising from the decisions of UCU's National Congress and the National Executive Committee, the subscription rates for 2017/18 were agreed in June 2017. A table showing the new rates taking effect on 1 September 2017 is below, this represents a 1.85% increase in subscription rates (national subs). There is no increase in our local subs and these subs are effective until 31st August 2018.

UCU is conducting a survey of academic related professional staff in the pre-92 universities to better understand key issues affecting you as workers.

The survey is at this address: yoursay.ucu.org.uk/s3/ARPS-survey

UCU wants members and non-members to complete the survey so please share the address with anyone who is Academic-Related staff.  It will inform the work that UCU and its academic related professional staff committee does, so please take the time to complete it.

Our petition against the possible outsourcing of the OU's IT Services has now had over 7900 signatures, this is a great response and we thank everyone who has taken the time to sign it.

www.change.org/p/stop-privatisation-at-the-open-university

We are holding a a short (10-minute) rally at Walton Hall on the grass outside the Hub at 1:15pm, to start our campaign against OU privatisation. If you are based at Walton Hall or attending the Learn About Fair, please come and give us just a few minutes of your time.

Not based at Walton Hall? There are some other ways you can help:

If you require assistance with a matter concerning your ability to live (or continue to live) and work in qualifying employment in the United Kingdom please contact UCU's Membership and Professional Support Department who will refer you to specialist immigration lawyers Bindmans LLP.

email: legalservices@ucu.org.uk
website: https://ucu.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/438

Our Branch Equality Officer, Denzil de Souza attended the TUC Discrimination Law conference, along with one of our AL reps, Kevin McNerney.  Denzil’s full report is on our blog and here are some extracts from that report.
https://oubucu.wordpress.com

Our Branch Equality Officer, Denzil de Souza wrote a comprehensive report on the UCU Equality conference, we have produced a summary in this article and the full report is on our blog: https://oubucu.wordpress.com.

The Conference took place at Aston Conference Centre, Birmingham in December 2016 and was divided into four separate sub-conferences, one for each equality group: disabled members, female members, black members and LGBT members.

We asked our members for comments about what it’s like to be on a fixed-term or associate lecturer contract. We received eloquent testimony about the impact on individuals and on the work staff are able to do. Here is a selection of the replies we received and thank you to all the members who sent us their comments.

“I would be so happy if we were given permanent contracts so that we can concentrate on our work and continue to put our students first.”

We won a better deal for members who were affected by the locations closures, including a rational London weighting, better support for home-working, agreement to maintain some level of regional infrastructure, and a co-operative approach to the move to shift-work.

We conducted a survey into the Group Tuition Policy and one of our Vice Presidents, Caitlin Adams, has written a report on the survey results. Thank you to everyone who responded to our survey.