UNISON and UCU Senate House Branches want to repeat our stated position that the University of London should seek to end outsourcing and bring existing outsourced staff back in-house.

 We ask the University to look at the examples set by LSE and SOAS following discussion with Unison at those institutions, which resulted in positive outcomes for outsourced staff at both these Universities.

 We call upon support from our members to make this happen.  

 

As you may be aware, the University of London has decided to review the Quality Standards and Governance Department in the University of London International Programmes.

UCU and UNISON have been involved in the discussion with Mr. Craig O’ Callaghan and Dr. Mary Stiasny and we are aware of the proposed reviews for Marketing, Executive Office, and Global Engagement departments in UoLIA.

The review has been requested by the University’s Member Institutions to find out whether they are getting value for money.  Our understanding is that this is not a cost-reduction exercise and there is no suggestion of staff redundancies.

UCU and UNISON will work hard to ensure that these reviews are transparent and fully involve the staff in these departments and ensure that they have the opportunity to submit evidence.

We will not accept the validity of any review which fails to respect these core principles. Above all else, we will oppose vigorously any compulsory redundancies (if these are proposed at any stage).

We would like to hear from you.  Please come along to the meeting ( venue to be confirmed) or if you have any concerns that you want to discuss before the meeting, please contact UNISON ruth.buckingham@london.ac.uk and UCU kumar.singaravelou@london.ac.uk

UNISON/UCU Senate House.

John McDonnell MP, Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer on why you should join UCU.

https://join.ucu.org.uk/

Dear All,

UCU Senate House branch welcomes you to attend the monthly UCU Members’ meeting to be held tomorrow on the 22 June 2017 between 12:30 to 1:30 Room G16.

Agenda

1. Joint statement from Unison and UCU about outsourcing;
2. Report on the cost of living allowance salary – survey result;
3. Departmental news: UoLIA, Cosector;
4. Any other business.

We recommend that you attend the meeting to discuss and voice any concerns relating to work.  We are happy to take this forward on your behalf.  Tea, Coffee and biscuits will be provided.  All current UCU members and staff who would like to join the UCU are welcome.

UCU Branch
Senate House

 

A joint statement from UCU and UNISON Senate House branches:

We note with concern the ongoing dispute between Cordant and its security staff.

As always, UNISON’s and UCU’s long held positions is to strongly oppose the outsourcing of workers in all circumstances.

We are formally approaching the University to re-visit the issue of outsourcing with the aim of returning all staff in house.

Furthermore, UCU Senate House will be holding a members’ meeting tomorrow to discuss, amongst other matters, the trend of outsourcing in HE.

Please find the electronic copy of the FACT service  issues.

fact-service_volume-79_issue7_16_feb_2017

fact-service_volume-79_issue6_9_feb_2017

fact-service_volume-79_issue5_2_feb_2017

fact-service_volume-79_issue2_12_jan_2017

Dear Union member

It is national anti bullying week this week and to coincide with this UCU Senate House are launching an initiative on sexual harassment.

In light of the recent TUC report “still just a bit of banter?”  it would appear that we still have some way to go on this issue.

In order for us to be effective in our efforts we need to know more about how this issue affects you.

If you could find the time to complete the following survey we would be very grateful.

It will give us an insight into what is happening right now for you our members and it will inform the action that we need to take on this issue.

Please don’t suffer in silence. Your Union is here for you.

Kind regards
Carol

UCU Equality representative

Hello Colleagues,

The future of the Feminist Library is under threat as they are facing unsustainable increases in rent. The Feminist Library is a volunteer-led, unfunded, feminist organisation and may be forced to close.

The Feminist Library is the UK’s pre-eminent collection of Women’s Liberation Movement and feminist literature with an incomparable collection of over 7,000 books, 1500 periodical titles from around the world, archives of feminist individuals and organisations, pamphlets, papers, posters, and ephemera. Based in London and run by a collective of volunteers, the Feminist Library has been supporting feminist research, activist and community projects since 1975. For over 40 years, the Feminist Library has provided a space for people to learn, educate and organise around feminist issues.

In response the Feminist Library launched a petition and at the time of writing have over 16,000 signatures, demanding that Southwark Council withdraw the threat of eviction. Show your support for Women’s History and the feminist struggle for full gender equality by:

• making a financial donation to the Feminist Library emergency fund 
• supporting the library as individuals by joining their Friends Scheme

• publicising the Feminist Library to branch members, the work they do and events they run, and asking members to also sign the Save the Feminist Library from Eviction petition

Many thanks!

There will be one-day LGBT+ research conference, entitled Equality Today? In Manchester on Friday 9th June.

The conference is open to all and we calling for papers from academics, researchers and activists on sexual orientation and gender identity issues and LGBT+ lives. Further information can be found in the following documents:

Call for papers: https://ucu.london.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/call-for-papers.pdf
Event promo: https://ucu.london.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/event-promo.pdf

Registration is open at https://ucu.wufoo.com/forms/ucu-lgbt-research-conference-2017/

To submit a proposal for presentation of no more than 500 words contact Seth Atkin email: satkin@ucu.org.uk.

Dear colleague

UCU and UNISON have received the following offer from the University of London in the campaign to equalise leave arrangements. It is not everything members would have wanted but it does represent progress in the correct direction.

We would like to receive informal feedback from you on whether you support these changes. The Senate House UCU committee will consider your response inform on whether we accept the offer from the University.

1. to increase leave to levels 1 – 6 by two days to 27 days for full-time staff (pro-rata for part-time) for all current staff in these grades and all future joiners. The implementation date will depend on the date of agreement following the unions’ consultation with their membership but could be from 1 February 2016 if agreement is reached before the end of July;

2. existing staff will be offered the choice of moving to the new leave allowance or, if they wish, remaining on the old terms on a personal basis;

3. a review of the current TOIL arrangements in partnership with the recognised unions. We will discuss the terms of reference of such a review separately;

4. as a condition of making this increase, the current arrangements for starters and leavers in all grades will be changed so that the leave allowance for the months of starting and leaving is calculated pro-rata to the number of days actually worked, rounded up to the nearest half-day. I enclose a chart which indicates how this would work in practice.

On item 2: This is a reference to the fact that part-time staff (all grades) who normally do not work on Mondays receive less annual leave on the whole than those who do work on Mondays, due to Bank Holidays usually falling on a Monday. This will be ended if you request it, but if you benefit by usually working on Mondays you do not have to move over.

On item 3: UCU will take up this issue separately and we recognise this is an issue for staff graded Level 07 and above.

On item 4: This is potentally a detrimental change affecting all members of staff. There is a practice when a member of staff’s final day of work is part way through a month, their final leave calculation is rounded to the nearest month. (i.e. up to 2.5 days leave for one extra day’s work).

Jon