Take part

UCU is a by-staff, for-staff organisation of university and college employees who work together to improve our working conditions. There are so many different ways you can take part. Have a look below, and see what you feel able to get involved with:

In your team
As a branch
For the branch
Industrial action
Nationally

In your team

Talk to your colleagues

Word-of-mouth is one of the most important ways the union can grow. Talk to your colleagues about what the union’s done for you, encourage them to join – even link them to this website! Every little helps.

Talk to your local reps

Find out who your local rep is on our reps and contact page, and ask them if you can help with anything. Reps can only address issues that they know about, so even keeping your rep abreast of any changes or management decisions in your area is a powerful way to help UCU support your unit.

Become a local contact

Local contacts help promote UCU by talking to colleagues about the union and sharing union materials, without taking on all the duties of a rep. We don’t name them on the website, but we do support them in the background. You can be as visible as you like in this role, and the branch will help you to promote the union in ways that work for you. Contact ucu@open.ac.uk for more information.

Become a rep

We are always looking for new reps! You will get a mentor to help you in the role, and membership of a cohort that support each other. UCU runs formal training across the year, for those who want to develop their skills further. A lot of our reps buddy up to make things easier and spread the work.

Local reps provide a point of contact for members in your area, help to promote UCU, and recruit new members. As you gain experience you can become involved in negotiations with management (though don’t have to be, if that doesn’t sound like you). Contact ucu@open.ac.uk if you’re interested.

As a branch

Join a working group or committee

Working groups and committees are the union’s way of tackling specific issues and themes at work. We have groups working on everything from Generative AI to workload issues, to divestment and ethical finance. It’s a good way to gain experience by focusing on an area that interests you, collaborating with a smaller group of likeminded people. See more on the working groups page.

Go to branch meetings

Branch meetings are a good way to get briefed on what is happening this month. It’s a chance to find out what’s going on across the OU, share your perspective, and vote on branch policy. Quite often a working group will bring their findings or recommendations to a branch meeting, in order to increase awareness. You can find the dates of our branch meetings on the events page.

For the branch

Help with casework

Most of the day-to-day work of the branch involves supporting individual colleagues behind the scenes. Most concerns involve helping members to fix mistakes, such as management mis-reading policies, incorrect reasonable adjustments, payroll errors, or other unexpected accidents. Caseworkers can also help with tricky technical issues, such as FTE changes, Voluntary Severance applications, pensions, or overseas working. More experienced caseworkers will represent members in situations such as disciplinary, grievance or redundancy procedures, where their support wins truly life-changing improvement.

We are always interested in getting more caseworkers trained. You will always get to choose which cases you take on, and the more people we have available the faster we can offer help. Contact ucu@open.ac.uk for more information.

Join the executive committee

The executive committee is responsible for the day-to-day running of the branch. Most Exec members focus on coordinating a specific area of the branch’s work. Some of the positions are named, such as the ‘AL Officer’ who focuses on AL concerns, but others are more informal, such as leading on environmental issues. The exec are democratically elected once a year in a ballot of the entire membership. If you are interested in joining the executive committee, the calling notice for nominations is issued in April.

Find out more about the executive committee, including who’s who, on our executive committee page.

Support our negotiators

Negotiators attend the Joint Negotiating Forum (OU + UCU) and the Joint Trade Unions Forum (OU + UCU + Unison) to formally negotiate a wide range of issues with university management, representing all OU staff. Ultimately, what we negotiate depends upon what the reps, caseworkers and working groups uncover and ask us to escalate. See our negotiating groups page for more information.

Industrial action

Industrial action happens when we are in a dispute with the employer that can’t be solved through negotiations. It is something we all do together, and not something you can do individually. We can only take industrial action if members call for specific agreement or action from the OU and if a majority of members vote for the branch to carry out specific actions, under specific legal protections. In short, we very rarely go on strike, and most of our time is spent representing members through other routes.

There is more information about industrial action on our industrial action page.

Nationally

UCU works across the UK to campaign on issues that affect all colleges and universities. There are a range of ways to take part.

Go to a rally

Read the UCU Friday Email for information about upcoming rallies and marches. These are great fun and a good way to meet members from other branches, in addition to putting pressure on government and raising the profile of UCU.

Attend congress or join a national committee

See the UCU structures page for information about how UCU is organised democratically at a national level. There are plenty of opportunities to get involved, from attending congress to seeking election to a national committee. National positions aren’t ‘promotions’ and don’t require exceptional expertise; the main requirements are enthusiasm for the topic.

Get training

For CPD, UCU provides free, short, online courses to members and non-members. These are suitable for studying in OU-funded annual professional development time, covering EDI, sustainability, challenging casualisation, and more.

UCU's training for new Representatives is more intensive. Courses tends to be 1-3 days, depending upon the topic, and can be either online or face-to-face. The branch pays travel and accommodation for reps to attend training.

The OU operates across Britain and Ireland, so we have a variety of training options. Within UCU, everyone employed by the OU counts as the 'Eastern and Home Counties' region for training purposes, which tends to run classes online. Some courses are funded by devolved governments and are open to members resident in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland. Members in the Republic of Ireland can also attend ICTU training.

Other bodies provide courses of varying lengths and specialism. UnionLearn and the GFTU do a real mix of short and long courses on various topics, whilst the TUC and ICTU courses tend to be longer and for Reps. ACAS is very technical. If in doubt, ask the branch mailbox at ucu@open.ac.uk!