Miscellaneous

In this Bulletin:

Branch General Meeting – Reminder

Teaching Observations

Recording of Teaching Sessions

Management Misinformation About Working Times and Locations

Location of Learning Support

Research Staff

Far-Right March

Flu Jabs

Recruitment Drive – Help Needed

Branch General Meeting – Reminder

The first Branch General Meeting of the new academic year will be held via Teams on 15 October, 1.30-3.00.

Agenda Items:

1. Ongoing Disputes
   – Redundancy Prevention
   – Block Delivery
   – Recording of Teaching
   – L-SL Progression
   – Grade G Teaching Roles
2. Strike Ballot
3. Recruitment Drive
4. AOB

Remember that BGMs and AGMs are official union meetings and you are legally entitled to time off to attend them. Senior mgmt have promised that no teaching sessions or other staff meetings will be scheduled to clash, but some managers do seem to forget this, so please let us know if you encounter any difficulties.

Members for whom we have a Lancashire email address have been sent a calendar appointment. Others please join via the link in your email.

Teaching Observations

The university had a Teaching Observation scheme (distinct from the Peer Observation of Teaching scheme) that was negotiated and agreed with UCU. Management appear to have surreptitiously replaced this with a significantly different version not discussed, negotiated or agreed with UCU. Therefore, for the time being, if you are asked to participate in Teaching Observation, UCU advise you to decline. If your line manager attempts to instruct you to participate then UCU advise you to seek UCU support. Once the versioning issues have been resolved and UCU are sure that only a negotiated and agreed version is in use, we will send updated advice in a branch bulletin.

Recording of Teaching Sessions

At the start of this academic year, Management published a Recording of Teaching policy that had not been negotiated and agreed with UCU and that UCU had several significant objections to; UCU declared a dispute over this, as announced in the September UCU bulletin. We now have an interim agreement with Management that until the dispute is resolved, academic staff may be encouraged to comply with the policy but will not be instructed or otherwise compelled to. If you are happy to comply with the policy, then do so, albeit at your own risk. If you are not happy to comply with it, then don’t. This should not cause you to come under pressure from your line manager, but if it does then contact UCU for support.

Management Misinformation About Working Times and Locations

Last academic year, the Dean of Medicine & Dentistry stated in a school newsletter that academic staff must be on campus at least four days per week. This information was incorrect and at odds with the university policy on academic working times and locations. Management acknowledged the error and undertook to send out a correction to staff in the school. However, more than half a year has passed without the correction getting sent out, so we’re including it in this bulletin (while still insisting that Management send out the promised correction).

For all academic staff, the times and places where you do your work are determined by the requirements of the particular duties itemized in your workload plan. Some duties, such as teaching in a classroom, must be done at a particular time in a particular place; other duties, such as marking, needn’t be done at any particular time or in any particular place. Therefore for no academic is it the case that, regardless of the specific duties itemized in your workload plan, you must work on campus for a certain number of days per week.

Location of Learning Support

Students should have the options of receiving Learning Support both online (Teams) and face-to-face. Therefore staff who offer Learning Support should offer both options. In at least one school (Psychology & Humanities), Management orally briefed staff that only face to face Learning Support should be proactively offered, with online LS provided only if the student proactively requests it. Management have confirmed that this oral briefing was incorrect, and was not given in all schools, but have declined to circulate a correction.

Research Staff

Academic staff in Research-Only roles often find that the concerns peculiar to staff in these roles tend to get neglected. If you are in such a role (Senior Research Assistant, Post-Doctoral Research Assistant, Research Associate, Research Fellow, Senior Research Fellow), then we encourage you to contact UCU individually to articulate your concerns. Currently UCU are in very slow-moving discussions with Management about (i) creating better career pathways for Research-Only staff, (ii) creating better possibilities for progression from Research Fellow to Senior Research Fellow, (iii) rectifying the anomaly of the local Research Assistant role, whose title is universally understood to designate an academic role but which is locally defined as a wholly non-academic clerical role.

Far-Right March

As some of you may have heard, it is possible that a so-called “Hope and Glory” march will take place on 12th October that will come close to the Preston campus. If this March goes ahead there is likely to be an elevated risk to members of our community being subjected to physical or verbal racist attack in areas that the march passes through. The University’s Emergency Planning Team are aware of this event and have measures in place to safeguard staff and students. If you are interested in the planned counter-protest by anti-racist groups you can contact Tamsyn privately on tamsynmahoneysteel@gmail.com.

Flu Jabs

Members are reminded that the University is offering free flu vaccine vouchers for staff who are not eligible for an NHS flu vaccine. The following link gives more information and a link to the form to apply for your voucher: https://msuclanac.sharepoint.com.mcas.ms/SitePages/Book-your-free-flu-jab.aspx

Recruitment Drive – Help Needed

The new academic year brings many challenges, as the Bulletin above amply demonstrates. UCU can fight these challenges only when we are strong, with large numbers of members and good density of membership in all departments. Unfortunately, many valued colleagues left the University this summer after the latest round of redundancies, so we need a recruitment drive to build membership back up. We need as many members as possible to speak to the non-members in their schools and services. If you would be willing to help with this, please email us or contact Andrew Baron, our recruitment lead, on abaron@lancashire.ac.uk. We will give you a short list of names, and some hints and tips about what to say!

Lancashire UCU Branch Committee

In this Bulletin:

Reminder – Open Member Meeting Next Week
Learning Support Hours
New & Ongoing Local Disputes:

1. Security of Employment
2. L-SL Progression
3. Recording of Teaching
4. Grade G Teaching Roles
5. Block Teaching & Sprints

New Lanyard Policy
Please Check Your Details & Update Your Email Address

Reminder – Open Member Meeting Next Week

The first Open Member Meeting of the year will take place next Wednesday, 10 September, at 1.00-2.00pm. For logistical reasons, this one will be on Teams only. Please check your email for the link.

These are informal, no-agenda meetings for members to bring any concerns or ideas to the Branch Committee. Come and tell us what is happening in your schools/services.

Learning Support Hours

 Learning support hours should be undertaken if and only if they are itemized in your workload plan. This is in accordance with the university’s new Learning Support Hours policy, which has been negotiated with UCU but the University’s Academic Workload Guidance has not yet been updated to reflect the change.

New & Ongoing Local Disputes:

UCU are about to declare three new local collective disputes to go alongside two ongoing local collective disputes. These disputes are as follows.

1. Security of Employment (New)

UCU demands:

• Academic teams and UCU must be fully involved in decision making about potential course/subject closures.
• Emergency cost saving measures must ensure UCU members have livelihood-preserving options.

We are hopeful of securing binding agreements that achieve these demands. The dispute is not because any impasse has been reached but because the issue is urgent and may require escalation if not resolved swiftly. 

2. L-SL Progression (New)

UCU demands:

• L–SL progression must be unsuspended and backdated to 1 September 2025.
• Any future Management proposals for reducing costs by suspending L–SL progression must be accompanied by alternative cost-reduction proposals and negotiated with UCU.

3. Recording of Teaching (New)

UCU demand:

Any Recording of Teaching policy must be negotiated, not merely consulted upon, with UCU.

Management have published online an alleged ‘Recording of Teaching’ policy that impudently & disingenuously is labelled ‘consulted with UCU’, without acknowledging that it has not been negotiated with UCU, and UCU strongly oppose the policy as it stands. For UCU, the main issues are:

• Management’s failure to negotiate.
• Duties for academic staff must be determined by what is itemized on their workload plans, not by documents that Managers happen to publish on the Intranet. Workload plans must be informed by the University’s Academic Workload Guidance, and UCU are open to negotiating updates to the Academic Workload Guidance in the light of new properly negotiated policies.
• Academics must have the right to separate a performance for live audience from a performance for recording.
• Ultimate responsibility for ensuring intellectual property law is followed rests with Management. So does ultimate responsibility for ensuring the various deadlines are met. Academic staff cooperate with Management, but Management cannot offload their proper responsibilities onto academic staff.
• The gratuitous mention of potential disciplinary ramifications for noncompliance is merely intended to bully and intimidate. A so-called ‘policy’ in which Managers seek to manage through bullying and intimidation of academic staff has no place in a university.

4. Grade G Teaching Roles (Ongoing)

The crux of this very long-running dispute concerns the conditions under which academics in Grade G teaching roles may be denied progression to Grade H. After many years of Management inaction, we managed to make some headway late last academic year, and we hope to bring it to a conclusion this academic year. (If this issue affects you, we encourage you to write to us about it.)

5. Block Teaching & Sprints (Ongoing)

As you will know from previous Bulletins, UCU have lodged a formal Resolution Request over the failure of management to consult course teams over whether block delivery is right for their courses, and we have had several meetings as a result. These discussions resumed this week, following the summer hiatus, and management appear to be making significant concessions. Firstly, they say they have made the process of opting out easier: courses will still all be expected to move to a 30-credit structure, but teams should be able to choose the “short fat” model (seven-week blocks, running sequentially) or the “long thin” model (fourteen-week blocks, running two at a time), through a fairly straightforward approval process. This has already happened for many courses, including all of Humanities. Secondly, they say that the Sprint process to develop the new courses is also optional: teams can choose to follow the normal course review process and timetable if they prefer.

Our discussions with management have not concluded, and we are still far from persuaded that the move to block is a good idea, but it is beginning to look as if those teams who feel railroaded into block and/or sprints should complain to their local managers. UCU will be happy to support any teams that wish to do this. We will update further after our next meeting with management.

Thank you to all the members who completed our survey about attitudes to block teaching & the sprints, and thank you especially to the members who came to the meeting with management this week. UCU’s response to management’s proposals (including details of the survey results, interviews with staff from other universities, and an analysis of the relevant literature) can be seen on our website here: https://lancashire.web.ucu.org.uk/2025/09/04/ucu-response-to-block-teaching-proposal/

New Lanyard Policy

We are aware that many members are upset by management’s recent announcement that blue lanyards are mandatory and rainbow lanyards will no longer be provided. We would like to assure members that UCU was not consulted or even informed about this policy. We encourage you to contact the Branch Committee if you would like further support on this issue.

Please Check Your Details & Update Your Email Address

Following the university name change, we need every member to log in to MyUCU (www.ucu.org.uk/myucu) and update your email details as soon as your new “Lancashire” address goes live. While you are in MyUCU, please also check that the details in the “Employment” tab are correct, particularly the name of your school/service and the building you are primarily based in. If your particular school/building combo is not in the drop-down list, please email membership secretary Cath Sullivan (csullivan@uclan.ac.uk) so it can be added.

UCU Lancashire Branch Committee

Thank you to all the members who completed our survey about attitudes to block teaching & the sprints, and thank you especially to the members who came to the meeting with management this week. UCU’s response to management’s proposals (including details of the survey results, interviews with staff from other universities, and an analysis of the relevant literature) can be downloaded here:

Block Delivery UCU Response

Lancashire UCU Branch Committee

In this Bulletin:

EGM Report & Industrial Action Vote

Block Teaching Survey

University Name Change

Summer Casework Support

EGM Report & Industrial Action Vote

Thank you to everyone who came to the Emergency Branch General Meeting on Wednesday 25 June. Attendance was much higher than usual (especially bearing in mind the time of year) which is a sure sign that members are extremely angry over Management’s recent behaviour in threatening compulsory redundancies, suspending L-SL progression, and imposing block teaching and the recording of teaching sessions. After a lively discussion, the following motion was proposed by the Branch Committee:

• This Branch condemns the failure of UCLan Management to negotiate meaningfully and in good faith with UCU over compulsory redundancies, L-SL progression, block teaching and the recording of teaching.
• This Branch affirms its willingness to take serious and sustained industrial action if necessary to protect its members’ livelihoods and terms & conditions of employment.
• This Branch empowers the Branch Committee to begin the legally-required processes for a postal ballot for industrial action unless UCLan Management make a binding commitment to negotiating satisfactory solutions to all these issues.

132 votes were recorded in the meeting, and every single one was in favour of the motion! This is an excellent result that gives our negotiating team a very strong hand. We will be discussing options for industrial action with UCU Regional Office and will keep you informed of our progress with Management. Thank you again to everyone who came and voted.

Block Teaching Survey

We are still waiting for Management’s promised resolution meeting over failure to consult with course teams on block delivery. That means it is not too late to have your say in our survey! Please follow the link below if you have not already contributed, and please also let us know if you would be willing to come to a meeting with Andrew Ireland & Janice Allen to express your concerns in person.

https://forms.gle/xCYAbE3zaaK9uGwY7

Results so far show that very few academics believe block delivery to be a good idea.

University Name Change

As you know, we will all be getting new email addresses in the next few weeks, with the “@uclan.ac.uk” replaced by “@lancashire.ac.uk”. We have asked UCU HQ whether they could change all our membership records in one go, but sadly no, they would have to do each one manually, which they really don’t have time to do. So we need EVERY MEMBER to log in to MyUCU (www.ucu.org.uk/myucu) and update your email details as soon as the new addresses go live.

While you are in MyUCU, please also check that the details in the “Employment” tab are correct, particularly the name of your school/service and the building you are primarily based in. If your particular school/building combo is not in the drop-down list, please email membership secretary Cath Sullivan (csullivan@uclan.ac.uk) so it can be added.

Summer Casework Support

During the summer break, UCU is not collectively available for negotiations with management, but we will still be offering individual support to members in need. Just write to ucu@uclan.ac.uk (or indeed ucu@lancashire.ac.uk) in the normal way, but please be patient as there will be fewer caseworkers on duty. We will endeavour to reply to everyone within five working days.

Have a good summer!

UCU UCLan Branch Committee

In this Bulletin:

AGM Reminder

AGM Provisional Agenda

Nominations to the Branch Committee

Local Subscriptions 2025-26

University of the Future

L-SL Progression

Harmful Gambling Training

Check Your Details

Branch AGM Reminder

Members are notified that the UCLan UCU Annual General Meeting will take place on Wednesday 23 April, from 13.30 – 15.00 on Teams. Members for whom we have a UCLan email address have already been sent a calendar appointment. Anyone else will need to join via the link we have emailed.

AGM Provisional Agenda

 Election of the Branch Committee (see below for details of the nomination process)

Branch Secretary’s report

Treasurer’s report

Equality Officer’s report

Membership Secretary’s report

Health and Safety report

Motions

• Local Subscriptions 2025-26 (see below for further information)

Any Other Business (AOB)

Nominations to the Branch Committee

 Nominations for election to the Branch Committee should be submitted by e-mail to the Branch Secretary, And Rosta (and.rosta@gmail.com) by 18.00 on Tuesday 15 April. Each nomination must be supported by separate emails from two members (one nominating, the other seconding) and an email from the nominee accepting the nomination.

Local Subscriptions 2025-26

The AGM will be asked to set the Local Subscription levels for the next academic year. Last year’s rates were set at a deliberately high level, in order to quickly build up a significant fighting fund. This has been successful, and we are on track to raise £60k in the current academic year. Assuming hardship payments of approx £60 per day of salary lost (eg due to strike action or pay docking during an assessment boycott) this could represent 1,000 person-days of industrial action. An extremely potent weapon! The Branch can therefore now consider reducing the local subs. The AGM will be offered three choices: low, medium and high. If all three options are rejected, there will be no local subscription next year.

Low Option

Salary £60k+ £1.50 Salary £40k+ £1.00 Salary £30k+ £0.50 Salary £22k+ £0.30 Salary £15k+ £0.20 Salary £ 5k+ £0.10 Salary below £5k, retired members & attached members (not employed by UCLan) £0.00. This option would add approx £7,200 to the fighting fund over the course of the year.

Medium Option

Salary £60k+ £10.00 Salary £40k+ £5.00 Salary £30k+ £3.00 Salary £22k+ £1.70 Salary £15k+ £0.80 Salary £ 5k+ £0.20 Salary below £5k, retired members & attached members (not employed by UCLan) £0.00. This option would add approx £36,000 to the fighting fund over the course of the year.

High Option (current subscription levels)

Salary £60k+ £15.00 Salary £40k+ £10.00 Salary £30k+ £7.50 Salary £22k+ £5.50 Salary £15k+ £3.755 Salary £ 5k+ £1.25 Salary below £5k, retired members & attached members (not employed by UCLan) £0.00. This option would add approx £70,000 to the fighting fund over the course of the year.

University of the Future

As you will know from previous discussion of this topic, management have agreed with UCU that for each course where a move to block teaching is being considered, there will be direct unmediated discussion between management and the course team to determine whether the move to block delivery is suitable for the course. Members across the University report that this has not been happening: instead, course teams are being told there is no choice, and block delivery is being steamrollered through without discussion. Accordingly, UCU have requested resolution via the new Resolution Procedure, and met with senior management representatives on 19 March to present examples from Psychology & Humanities, Sport, Business, and Arts & Media. We were hoping to provide an update in this Bulletin, but, regrettably, management have still not responded to this request. We will update further at the AGM and discuss next steps.

L-SL Progression

Similarly, we were hoping to be able to report on our attempts to get management to confirm that L-SL progression will resume this year. Unfortunately, management have still not confirmed this, and we are still waiting to hear. Meanwhile, we are pressing managers to confirm, at least, that eligible members have met the criteria to progress, so that they are not suddenly presented with extra hurdles when it does resume. If you were held up last year, or are due to progress this year, and have not already given UCU your details, please email us on ucu@uclan.ac.uk

Harmful Gambling Training

You may remember in 2023, UCLan was the first University in the country to sign up to the Harmful Gambling Charter which offers practical ways in which employers and trade unions can commit to promoting the health and wellbeing of colleagues and students who may be at risk due to gambling related harms. We continue to work with Beacon Counselling Trust,  who specialise in supporting individuals experiencing Gambling Related Harms as well as offering support to organisations to raise awareness on gambling related harms in the workplace.

People Team have arranged 2 webinars in 2025 with Beacon Counselling Trust, titled ‘Harmful Gambling Awareness – Bet you can help now!’. The key learning outcomes for participants attending the course are highlighted below:

• Learners will develop their knowledge, skills and attitudes concerning gambling related harms (GRH).
• Learners will explore and better understand the nature of gambling and gambling related harms and their impact on health and wellbeing.
• Learners will develop confidence in providing help and support to an individual at risk of, or experiencing, gambling related harms and how to signpost to specialist support services.

Dates, booking links and further information for booking can be found below:

Harmful Gambling Awareness – Bet you can help now! Monday 28 April from 14:00 – 15:30

Harmful Gambling Awareness – Bet you can help now! Thursday 12 June from 10:00 – 11:30

Check Your Details

All members should have received an  email in the last month or so, asking you to check that your details on the UCU membership database are accurate. Please do this, as it is extremely important that information such as school name, building name, salary band etc are correct. Errors could, for example, lead to a ballot for industrial action being ruled invalid.

Please log on to MyUCU at https://www.ucu.org.uk/myucu, check the “Employment” tab and update as necessary. If your particular school name/building name combination is not available in the drop-down list, email Membership Secretary Cath Sullivan on csullivan@uclan.ac.uk

UCLan UCU Branch Committee

In this bulletin:

BGM Report

University of the Future

L-SL Progression

NEC Elections

Workload & New Regulations

Adjustments to Annual Workload Hours

BGM Report

Thank you to all the members who attended the Branch General Meeting in January. The Branch heard an update from the Secretary, And Rosta, about the threat of redundancy facing several teams as a result of course closures. You will recall that our e-ballot last year was strongly supportive of strike action if necessary to defend these colleagues’ livelihoods. Fortunately, the negotiators have continued to make good progress in this, and we do not yet feel that we need to move towards a formal postal ballot while that remains so. Meanwhile, as the University has reported better-than-expected financial performance last year, we will be pressing for a reversal of the fractional reductions and stalled progression that many members have suffered.

Next, the Treasurer, Mike Eslea, reported on the development of the Branch Hardship Fund, which is being built up as a result of our new local subscriptions. These subs are adding approximately £5,000 per month to the fund, which means that by the time the subs are up for review at the AGM, we will have roughly £60,000 in the bank. If we used this money to fully repay colleagues suffering 100% pay docking due to industrial action, we could potentially support 600 person-days of action. This could be extremely effective, particularly if only certain areas of the University were targeted. Mike will present some more detailed scenarios to the AGM before we decide whether to change the subs for next year.

The next item of discussion was the upcoming national ballot on industrial action over pay. Andrew Baron presented the Branch Committee’s view that the HEC decision to ballot, following a tiny majority voting in favour in an e-ballot with dismally low turnout, was tactically foolish, especially at a time when so many universities are in financial trouble and threatening redundancies. We do not, therefore, propose to make any GTVO efforts for this ballot.

Next, the BGM discussed management’s plans to insist upon teaching cover for colleague absence. UCU’s position has always been that individual course/module teams are the best placed people to decide how colleague absence is handled, and that management’s “supply teacher” model might be counter-productive, as well as stupidly expensive if workloaded properly.

We also discussed the “University of the Future” project – see separate item below.

Lastly, there was some discussion of the University’s name change. Members expressed surprise that the change was approved by OfS despite objections from Lancaster. It appears that the bulk of the work to implement the change will fall to professional services colleagues, but members were asked to let UCU know if it seems likely to cause any issues for academics too. Email ucu@uclan.ac.uk

University of the Future

Block teaching: Management have agreed with UCU that for each course where a move to block teaching is being considered there will be direct unmediated discussion between Management and the course team to determine whether the move to block delivery is suitable for the course. If those discussions have not yet happened for the course teams you belong to then the course’s inclusion in block delivery will not have been decided yet. If you or your course team find that your school management is not abiding by this agreement then you can ask UCU to intervene on your behalf to ensure the agreement is honoured. Email us on ucu@uclan.ac.uk, including if possible the names of the UCU members in your team.

L-SL Progression

Are you due to progress from Lecturer to Senior Lecturer? You should be due to progress from Lecturer to Senior Lecturer if you are currently at Scale Point 38 (top of Grade H) and have not chosen to remain at Grade H rather than progress to SL. However, the chances of this progression actually happening are much increased if you engage the support of UCU. We are currently working to secure the progression of the batch of UCU members that have already engaged our support; if you contact us then we will add you to the batch. Email ucu@uclan.ac.uk

NEC Elections

In the last few days, you should all have received your voting papers for the election of a new UCU Vice-President, NEC delegates and an assortment of other national roles. Please do use your votes! Turnout is usually very low, so a small number of votes can make a big difference. Normally, the Branch Committee does not make a specific recommendation of who to vote for, but this time we feel that the vote is so important, given the foolishness of some of the decisions made by NEC recently (see BGM report above) we urge all members to vote for Dyfrig Jones for Vice-President, and for the other candidates recommended by Dyfrig here: https://dyfrigjones.com/necslate

Workload & the Effects of New Regulations & Policies

When it comes to workload, the university’s Academic Workload  Guidance (linked below) is paramount and is not superseded or rendered inapplicable by new regulations and policies. For example, a recent change to the regulations has potentially increased the time required for moderation by several hundred percent: nevertheless, you can only be expected to follow the new regulation if your workload allocation for moderation is increased accordingly; and it is your line manager’s responsibility to increase it. A further example is the appearance in the university timetabling policy and various other school management communications of measures to cover for the absence of module tutors: you can only be expected to comply with these measures if they are consistent with the standing university agreements on academic workload and academic working times and locations.

https://msuclanac.sharepoint.com/sites/DevelopmentPortal/SitePages/Academic-Workload-Management.aspx

Adjustments to Annual Workload Hours

1. As mentioned in the last bulletin, for the current academic year, we were given an extra day of annual leave. For academic staff, this means that your target annual workload total (1581 hours, pro rata) should be reduced by 7.4 hours (pro rata).
2. All staff were also given an extra two hours off for Christmas events. For academic staff, this means that your target annual workload total (1581 hours, pro rata) should be reduced by 2 hours (not pro rata).

Best wishes

UCLan UCU Branch Committee

Happy New Year! We hope the new academic year has started well for you. In this Bulletin:

BGM Reminder
2024-25 Meetings
Issues Raised at OMM
Block Teaching (“Project Next”)
Local Subscriptions
Extra Day of Annual Leave
Impact of VR

BGM Reminder

The first Branch General Meeting of the year takes place on 16 October, 1.30-3.00 via Teams. Remember that BGMs and AGMs are official union meetings and you are legally entitled to time off to attend them. Senior mgmt have promised that no teaching sessions or other staff meetings will be scheduled to clash, but some managers do seem to forget this, so please let us know if you encounter any difficulties.

Members for whom we have a UCLan email address have been sent a calendar appointment. Others please join via the link we have emailed.

2024-25 Meetings

Dates for your diaries:

Branch General Meeting: 22 January 2025
Annual General Meeting: 23 April 2025
Both 1.30-3.00 via Teams. Links and calendar appointments will be sent shortly before each meeting.

Open Member Meetings: Informal, no-agenda meetings for members to bring any concerns or ideas to the Branch Committee. These will be hybrid meetings via Teams and in person in Vernon VE050, at 1.00-2.00pm on 27 November, 5 March & 28 May.

 Issues Raised at OMM

 Thank you to those members who came to the first Open Member Meeting of the new academic year. Members discussed the new local subscriptions and how they might be used (see Bulletin item below). Members also raised the impact of VR on colleagues remaining at UCLan, and the plans for block teaching (also see Bulletin items below).

 Block Teaching (“Project Next”)

Management are engaged in discussing with UCU their ‘Project Next’ plans, which involve moving courses to block delivery (four consecutive 30-credit six-week modules delivered over up to three days per week) if it is suitable to do so. UCU have insisted that for each course there must be direct unmediated discussion between Management and the course team to determine whether the move to block delivery is suitable for the course. If those discussions have not yet happened for the course teams you belong to, then the course’s inclusion in block delivery will not have been decided yet. If you encounter any Management communication at odds with this position, please contact UCU with details.

Local Subscriptions

Following the decisions taken at the AGM in April and communicated in the May and June Branch Bulletins, our new local subscription has started being collected with the September payment. We plan to build up a significant fund that can be used to support members facing hardship as a result of industrial action in defence of local jobs. The decisions (setting up the subscription, and setting the contribution rates) will be reviewed at the 2025 AGM, where the Treasurer will present some alternative scenarios for how the money might be used.

 Extra Day of Annual Leave

Management have announced that for the current academic year, staff will be given an extra day of annual leave. For academic staff, this means that your target annual workload total (1581 hours, pro rata) should be reduced by 7.4 hours (pro rata).

Impact of VR

Members at the OMM (mentioned above) expressed many concerns about the impact of VR on those left behind. In some cases, this has meant the sudden departure of people who have been valued colleagues and friends for many years: a situation similar to bereavement. Added to this is the stress of finding ways to redistribute their work, keeping the students happy while resisting mgmt pressure to take on unreasonable workloads. If you encounter the latter, please contact UCU. If you need support with the former, please consider contacting the staff wellbeing services listed at https://msuclanac.sharepoint.com/sites/StaffWellbeingandSupport or the Education Support Network https://www.educationsupport.org.uk/

UCLan UCU Branch Committee

In this Bulletin:

Compulsory Redundancy Threat

Strike Ballot

Graduation Week

Project “Next”

Local Subscriptions

Compulsory Redundancy Threat

UCU have continued to make progress in discussions with UCLan management around trying to make savings in staffing costs in four Schools (Psychology & Humanities; Pharmacy & Biomedical Sciences; Arts & Media; Health, Social Work & Sport). We are confident that we could reach management’s savings targets through voluntary means, given enough time. However, management has consistently refused to rule out compulsory redundancies, and continue to insist that all savings must be made by the end of July. This means it is still a real possibility that colleagues could be fired in just a few weeks. We cannot allow this to happen. We need to send to management the strongest possible signal that UCU will defend our members’ livelihoods by every means available to us. That’s why we need EVERY MEMBER to vote in our ballot for industrial action.

Strike Ballot

The postal ballot for industrial action has opened today, so you should see voting papers arriving in the next day or two. Vote straight away, and vote “YES” to strike action and “YES” to action short of a strike! Then, as soon as you have posted your ballot paper, please click here to tell us you have voted: https://forms.gle/RzEVFy57ZF1FojpT6

If, by next Wednesday (3 July), you have not received your ballot paper, we will be sending out a link by which you can request another. This link will allow you to specify a different address, solely for the purpose of this ballot, to send the paper to. It can therefore be used if you are away from home, to get a paper sent somewhere else in the UK. The ballot will close on 16 July, so the last realistic date for posting will be Saturday 13 July. Please DO NOT leave it until the last minute!

If you are willing to help get the vote out, please let us know.

Graduation Week

As mentioned in the last Bulletin, we are planning a number of protest rallies during graduation week, to raise awareness of the redundancy threat. We will have leaflets aimed at academic staff, urging UCU members to vote in the strike ballot, and any non-members to join (new members can join in any industrial action, whether or not they were included in the ballot). We will have leaflets for students and families, too, making sure they understand that some of the dedicated colleagues who have helped them gain their awards could be fired by the end of the month. We will encourage them to let the VC know how they feel about this!

Details of dates/times will be circulated nearer the time, but please do let us know if you will be around to give your support, especially if you will be in a platform party and would be willing to come in your robes for a media photo opportunity.

Project “Next”

Management are proposing that in general, courses should consist of four consecutive nonconcurrrent 30-credit modules per year, each module distributed over up to three days per week for seven weeks. UCU will be in monthly discussions with Management over this proposal. Our first priority is to ensure that every course team is given the opportunity to establish whether this model of delivery is suitable for their course; Management recognize that it is not suitable for every course. We are pressing Management for a course team consultation plan, and in due course we’ll be checking with members that it is being followed.

Local Subscriptions

We have now submitted the required paperwork for the local subscriptions (detailed in the May Bulletin) to start. Assuming the approval process goes smoothly, the additional subs will begin to be taken from September onwards. You don’t have to do anything, it will happen automatically with your normal subs payment. The level of local subs will be reviewed at the next AGM.

UCLan UCU Branch Committee

In this Bulletin:

AGM Report 1: Redundancy Prevention

AGM Report 2: Local Subscriptions

AGM Report 3: Your New Branch Committee

Unison Learning At Work Week

UCU Equality Conference

Check Your Details

AGM Report 1: Redundancy Prevention

Prior to April 2024, Redundancy Prevention Committee had been focused on Humanities, but had been suspended as a plan was in place to resolve the issues there. UCU were seeking to negotiate a conditional agreement that for a rolling period of at least three years there will be no compulsory redundancies that would result in loss of livelihood. Management indicated their willingness to enter into negotiations on this matter, but the negotiations remained at a very early stage. In April 2024, Management announced that the financial outlook was far worse than predicted, and that UCLan was facing a £25m deficit for 2024-25. UCU HQ’s financial expert will check over UCLan’s figures (when they’re given to us properly), but the problems are sector-wide so we have no real reason to doubt the financial picture being painted, and the danger has been on the horizon for a long-time.

* If any members have financial/accounting expertise and could help us scrutinise the data when it comes, please email ucu@uclan.ac.uk

UCLan Management’s recovery plan is to try to cut costs by £15m next year, to reduce the deficit to £10m. Approx £5m can come from non-staffing costs, leaving £10m to be cut from the staffing budget. This equates to approximately 160 jobs. UCU have secured a Management commitment that Phase 1 (under way now) is to be confined to genuinely voluntary redundancies, and that any future process that might culminate in CRs would be begun anew.

UCU’s overriding aim is to secure members’ livelihoods. There’s a good chance we can continue to achieve this aim. Nevertheless, we must be ready for resolute industrial action if further persuasion is necessary. The following motion was passed overwhelmingly, with 99% in favour, only one vote against and one abstention:

This branch is resolutely committed to defending its members’ livelihoods. In the event that Management initiate a process that could culminate in a member compulsorily losing their livelihood, the branch will ballot its members to seek a mandate for industrial action.

AGM Report 2: Local Subscriptions

At the previous Branch General Meeting, we voted to institute a hardship fund. In order to build this fund up to useful levels, we proposed at the AGM to institute a local branch subscription, to be hypothecated to meet the level of expenditure regularly needed by the branch, and to support industrial action in local disputes, such that criteria for disbursement from the hardship fund would be agreed by future quorate branch meetings, based on the conditions at the time. This motion was passed overwhelmingly, with 95% in favour, only four votes against and one abstention. This subscription will be automatically deducted, along with the national subscription, from the usual direct debit.

A further motion was proposed, that (i) In the event that local subs are low, and the local hardship fund does not contain enough money to allow at that time the disbursements that branch policy at the time would dictate, the branch will maintain a record of the payments that branch disbursement policy required but which could not be made. (ii) In this event, at the earliest AGM the branch will vote on whether to increase local subs to a level that will allow the recorded unpaid disbursements to be paid retrospectively. (iii) In passing this motion, the branch affirms its hope and wish that in the event of such a vote at a future AGM, the branch will vote to increase local subs to a level that will allow the recorded unpaid disbursements to be paid retrospectively. This motion was also passed overwhelmingly, with 94% in favour, only three votes against and five abstentions.

A series of motions followed in which we decided the level of the local subscription. Three possibilities were available: a minimal figure, a medium figure, and a high level figure (meaning that it is at the top of the range of subscriptions charged by other UCU branches detailed here: https://www.ucu.org.uk/localsubs).

The AGM chose the following local subscription rates:

Salary £60k+   £15.00

Salary £40k+   £10.00

Salary £30k+   £ 7.50

Salary £22k+    £ 5.50

Salary £15k+    £ 3.75

Salary £ 5k+     £ 1.25

Salary below £5k    £0.00

Retired members    £0.00

Attached members (not employed by UCLan) £0

We have reported this decision to Regional Office, but have not heard yet when the additional deductions will start. The rate can only be changed at an AGM and will be reviewed annually.

AGM Report 3: Your New Branch Committee

There had been no new nominations for the Branch Committee, so the following slate was elected nem con:

• Aina Mir Fons [Branch Officer]
• And Rosta [Branch Secretary]
• Andrew Baron [Union Learning Rep]
• Cath Sullivan [Membership Secretary/Health & Safety Rep]
• Danila Datti [Green Rep]
• Mike Eslea [Treasurer/Assistant Branch Secretary]
• Tamsyn Mahoney-Steel [Branch Officer]
• Tara Styles-Lightowlers [Branch Chair/Equality Officer]
• Douglas Martin [Health & Safety Rep – Not on Branch Committee]

It was noted that two Branch Committee stalwarts, Mick McKrell and Peter Lucas, were standing down from the BC and leaving UCLan after many years of devoted service. Both have played a huge role in sustaining and developing the branch, in negotiating with Management and supporting members through casework. Mick also did a huge amount of work in Regional and National UCU, having been on the NEC and serving as NW Regional Secretary, and in liaison with other unions via the local Trades Councils. Both will be difficult to replace, and we wish them well for the future. The AGM heard several heartfelt tributes from fellow officers, and we will miss them both enormously.

Unison Learning At Work Week

Members may be interested in a series of events being run by our sister union, Unison, for this year’s “Learning At Work Week”: https://uclan.unison.site/events/learning-at-work-13th-17th-may-2024/

All the events are free to all UCLan colleagues, and there are some very interesting topics available.

UCU Equality Research Conference

Similarly, members should also be aware of the forthcoming UCU Equality Research Conference. This is a one-day hybrid event for academics and activists conducting research in equality. The conference will explore how people across (and within) equality groups have experienced or are experiencing actions and discourse around discrimination and equality. The conference is free of charge and open to members and non-members. It will take place on Friday 17 May (10:30-16:30) at the University of Manchester and online. Click here to register: https://ucu.wufoo.com/forms/ucu-equality-research-conference-2024/. The registration deadline has passed but we are told that new registrations will still be accepted.

One of the speakers at the conference will be our own Andrew Baron, giving a paper on stress and gender in HE, so it would be great if some UCLan members were to go along and show him support.

Check Your Details

Finally, all members please be on the lookout for an email from UCU Head Office (subject line “Help us to help you”) asking you to check your details on the MyUCU website: https://www.ucu.org.uk/myucu

It is extremely important that these details are accurate. It is even possible that a successful ballot for industrial action could be ruled invalid if member details were wrong, so it is worth taking a few minutes every year to make sure it is all correct and that you are paying the correct subs.

Please pay particular attention to the “Employment” tab, which shows which School you are in, and which building is your main place of work. If your particular combination of School and building does not appear in the drop-down list, please email Membership Secretary Cath Sullivan: csullivan@uclan.ac.uk.

UCLan UCU Branch Committee

This Bulletin contains some senstive information so we are not posting it here. Members please check your emails for your copy.