Leaflet (PDF)

All members of UoL staff will be asked whether they wish to accept the proposals that the University is proposing following our negotiations. Your ICE reps worked hard to pull together proposals and put forward arguments that meant we got the best deal for UOL staff. UCU and UNISON recommends that you support the proposal by voting YES.

We will be able to act as a conduit for all members of staff who wish to be a part of the information and consultation process. Would you like to know more about the University’s financial situation? Would you like to see changes to the flexible working policy? There will be regular open meetings as well as and an online forum where all staff can submit questions and receive a response. We are looking forward to our new role as an opportunity to continue to hold the University to account and ensure that everyone can be involved in the process.

UCU and UNISON welcome the opportunity to enhance our ability to represent all staff and are delighted that the University has agreed to our proposals to set up an online forum and hold regular open meetings with all staff.

If you are a union member it obviously makes sense to vote YES, but if you are not, here’s what UCU and UNSION has already done for you on your behalf recently.

• Increasing in London Weighting, which will be fully implemented by 2018 at £3,500
• Increasing in leave for L01-L06 from 25 and 27 days, with a further push to make it equal for all staff in the future.
• Locally representing staff on the following general issues
  • Health and Safety
  • Information and Consultation, which we already undertake
  • Restructuring and redundancy
  • Staff policies (e.g. compassionate leave policy, leave carry over policy)
• Negotiating nationally on pay and pension issues. This is a purely national issue. We do not negotiate the annual uplift locally
• Supporting HEE employees on UoL contracts during a major department restructure, negotiating successfully with senior managers to avoid compulsory redundancies

Our work on the above issues have benefitted you, whether or not you are a member of the union. It is true that members of the union do get more enhanced support from the unions in the form of trained representatives, such as Angela, Sam and myself – and get a say of the decision making process within the unions locally, regionally and nationally.

However that does not detract from the fact that we treat all members of staff equally when discussing collective matters with the University. The new arrangements simply formalise and facilitate our existing role.

So, we ask you to support us and vote YES on Monday 17th.

Jon Bitmead, Angela Ireland, Sam Ferman

PS The vote closes on Friday 28^th, but do vote early if you can.

If you are a UoL member of staff, you will have seen the summary of the election results in that the Level 7-10 ballot resulted in the UCU and UNISON candidates being elected.

On behalf of myself, Angela and Sam, I would like to thank you for reaffirming your faith in UCU and UNISON and us as your elected representatives. First and foremost elected by you as subscribing UCU members at our AGM, but now also in this wider staff ballot, which included those who do not subscribe to a union.

Naturally we are disappointed that Laura and Franco did not also get elected, so we should not pretend this is a complete victory. It is not. We will reflect deeply on this outcome.

The committee of the 5 elected representatives will likely begin meeting with University representatives in April to discuss a way forward on the matters of Information and Consultation with staff. Being concurrently (and temporarily) an elected representative of the Grade 7-10 constituency as well as the elected representative of UCU members we (myself and Angela) should not have a great deal of conflict of interest, due to naturally overlapping membership and interests. Part of the manifesto that we presented to staff during the election was that whether or not you were a member of UCU, we nevertheless represented those Grades in many collective issues. Staff in grades 7-10 overwhelmingly seem to have agreed with us in this respect. We encourage all staff in grades 7-10 to join UCU and get involved in industrial relations via this channel.

In summary therefore,  we will primarily I will report progress on negotiations to UCU members but we do reserve the right to communicate information to the grades who elected us.

The Senate House committee is meeting on Monday to decide whether UCU should engage in this process and if so, which candidates would be allowed to have the endorsement of UCU in their declaration.

This does not mean that other members of UCU cannot legitimately stand in this election process, but they would do so without UCU endorsement and possibly against the wishes of the committee. Therefore may I ask that all members of UCU refrain from submitting any application on Monday until the committee has had an opportunity to meet and decide the approach we are going to take.

Primarily our focus is likely to be on endorsing candidates for the L07-L10 constituency, so if you, as a member wish to be involved in this process, even as a candidate, please get in touch with me ASAP.

In addition we do know some of you are in the L01-L06 constituency. If so, I would be particular keen to speak to you regarding candidacy in this constituency. This may be very helpful.