If you haven't posted your USS ballot yet, what are you waiting for? We will be chasing up people individually in the New Year. If you're not sure which way to vote, perhaps see our 'Ten reasons why USS is a scandal waiting to bite back'.
Christmas Branch News
We look back over the year and find plenty to be cheerful about, with signs that staff are beginning to take the initiative in Higher Education.
It's been quite a year. We've often focused on the bad in our mailouts, but, so as not to dampen Christmas cheer, we thought it was the time to look at the good, and remind ourselves of where collective resolve has had a positive impact.
Our International Staff were at the forefront of our minds this year. With all at this university proud that #WeAreInternational, we have campaigned hard to remind our executive board that a hashtag is only a start. We now have the ear of the Vice-Chancellor, who we are meeting in the new year to discuss what practical measures can be taken to make sure our international colleagues feel properly valued by the university and remain eager to stay here.
In a reminder of the power of the collective, a strong response from members to the University's Saturday Open Days enabled us to present a robust defence of the importance of rest days, and forced a substantial rethink in the guidance to managers. We are happy that staff on lower grades are now being treated well, and that those at higher grades who do not normally work on Saturdays are agreeing to come in voluntarily. Additionally, the University has committed to reviewing the impact of the change with us later in the year.
Vice-Chancellor pay hit the headlines this autumn and, in a clear sign that the staff voice across the sector is growing, Dame Glynis Breakwell of Bath was forced to resign by the staff of her university. Other unpopular highly paid VCs are also under increasing pressure. We are hopeful that this represents a something of a turning point, with recent unsustainable pay trends starting to have repercussions. The new year will bring our university's financial statement, and we look forward to giving the figures proper scrutiny.
The biggest story in the recent months has been the USS pension scheme. We were very pleased to see that the national negotiations have been extended into January, beyond what had been presented as a firm deadline. A strong ballot response is now even more crucial, so make sure you return yours. We were also pleased to see our Vice-Chancellor respond to the petition of almost 300 of our staff calling on him to make his views known. We think he can say more on this issue, so please continue to sign!
Finally, please do remember to have a proper break over Christmas. See you in the New Year!
Sheffield UCU Committee
USS: keep up with the news on Twitter!
We have been making sure that all the breaking news on USS is featured prominently on our Twitter account. As well as all the latest developments and in-depth analysis, we have also found time for a more light-hearted take on things. Please do re-tweet and share our posts to make sure the counter-arguments to those being presented by Universities UK get heard.
Sign the petition against the 'Sacker's Charter' at Leeds University
If you haven't already done so, please sign the petition in support of staff at Leeds University, whose management are trying to push through a new clause allowing dismissal 'for some other substantial reason'. UCU members in Leeds have been on strike in protest at the proposed changes, and need our support!
October Branch News: Saturday open days, pensions and more!
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Come to our Branch Meeting and help us discuss the big issues!
Branch Meeting, Thursday 19 October, 1-2pm, Council Room, Firth Court
October Branch News
Widespread anger bubbles up over Saturday open days, the lecture capture roll-out falls short of our full support, and pensions are becoming a major headache for the sector.
The decision to shift University open days to Saturdays was announced before the summer, but most have only recently found out what it will mean for them. We are aware of widespread anger over the imposition of a decision made without any meaningful consultation or clear justification and against the wishes of a number of departmental admissions teams. Lab-based subjects in particular have big concerns over how they can show the university at its best when there is no activity to present. Members are showing significant opposition to the University's attempts to break our 'contract by conduct' of not coming into work on Saturdays. For the university to demand that we do against the backdrop of relentless pay erosion and increasing demands elsewhere is unforgivable, and has potential to be the straw that broke the camel's back. We will be debating a motion on this issue at our October branch meeting and would welcome thoughts from members by email or through departmental contacts.
The widespread roll out of the University's lecture capture technology continues to fall short of having our full support. While the policy is now very close to what we asked for, one major sticking point remains: that the final decision on whether a lecturer can opt-out resides not with the lecturer but with the head of department. Please do contact us urgently if you have been over-ruled on a request to opt-out, as we need evidence on how this policy is working in practice. A little on the late side, we have now issued guidance to members on your rights and how to use the technology sensibly. We also urge all to look out for red-lights every time you enter a lecture theatre or finish any teaching: one firm press of the light will stop the recording of private conversations.
The USS pension scheme is becoming a prominent issue for all in pre-92 universities. The current valuation, which even the regulator describes as 'very complex', shows a best estimate large (£8bn) surplus. Factoring in a required safety-buffer for prudence puts the fund in a break-even position. It is only when investment plans are changed, due to the innocuously named Test 1, that problems arise. The wranglings over the valuation are making national headlines and we are doing everything we can to force all behind-the-scenes activity into public. As a last resort, the union has the option of strike action, and we strongly urge members to make it clear that they are prepared to take this action if it is necessary and appropriate.
A recent post on a security services webpage, which appeared to shift responsibility for sexual assault onto the victim, was swiftly removed following outrage from students and staff. We have received an apology from security services for this 'administrative error', but we have not received a response to our question over the training that is in place to make sure these views have no place at the University. We hope to make progress on this, and will keep members informed.
Finally, you may have received a request to participate in the University's 'Top 100' survey. While we remain deeply sceptical about the meaningfulness of a survey that excludes the University's casually employed staff, we do encourage members to fill it in, and to do so as honestly as possible, warts and all. View it as catharsis.
Sheffield UCU Committee
Leeds and Manchester on strike!
Leeds University UCU are involved in a stand-off, with an attempt by the university to add ‘Some Other Substantial Reason’ to their list of reasons for dismissal.
Staff at Leeds have been working to contract and today are on their third of three consecutive days of strike action. Solidarity and external exposure will help them to win this dispute. With this being a UCU dispute of national significance, please take a few minutes to:
Email their Vice Chancellor, Sir Alan Langlands, to protest. You could let him know that SOSR to dismiss staff has no place in a University and that Leeds Uni has managed well without it to date. If you are a Leeds alumnus please mention this.
Sign their petition and circulate to everyone you know.
In Manchester, staff will strike later this month after they overwhelmingly backed industrial action to protect a planned 140 job losses. A massive majority of members who voted (87%) backed industrial action. Strike action has been planned for Monday 23 October and Tuesday 24 October, and staff will then begin working to rule from Wednesday 25 October.
Professorial pay increases: fair and transparent?
We have expressed concern that heads of department now have the final say over whether professorial staff may be considered for an incremental pay increase. Professors no longer have the right to put themselves forward for consideration, or to challenge the head's decision. The head has no obligation to provide any written justification for their decision, making it impossible even to use the grievance procedure to challenge cases of perceived victimisation or discrimination. The University insists all heads should have had ongoing discussions with professorial staff about their decision throughout the year, but we are already aware this often does not take place and that relationships between heads and professors vary significantly across the institution.
If you are concerned that procedures are being flouted or about unfair treatment in this area please let us know and help us bring some fairness and accountability to this rather arbitrary process.
Wed 29 Nov, 13:00-14:00, General Meeting, Council Room, Firth Court
Events
Scrap the cap: public sector pay rally and demo, 17 October, London
From Balfour to the Nakba: Empire, Settler-Colonialism and the Question of Palestine, Wed 15 November, Sheffield
Summer Branch News: restructures, Saturday working and more
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Put our USS-themed Action Group meeting in your diary: Wednesday 13 September, 1-2pm, Room tbc.
Summer Branch News
The traditionally quiet time of year has been anything but, with member-led branch meetings, restructures and new policies imminent, and the USS pension fund making the headlines.
The university's Strategy Delivery Group (SDG), a temporary management team set up by the Vice Chancellor to look for money-saving opportunities across the university, isn't set to disband any time soon. The SDG were responsible for last year's Staff Release Scheme, and their reviews of substantial areas of the university's activities may well lead to significant change and uncertainty. With large parts of Professional Services currently in the spotlight and many staff potentially affected, we are keeping a close eye on what's going on alongside UNISON and Unite. Most importantly, we are keen to make sure the university follows its agreed change management procedures and treats affected staff sensitively and fairly. Please do contact us with any concerns or issues you think we need to know about.
In July, following a call from 50 Sheffield UCU members, we held an Extraordinary General Meeting where a motion was passed strongly criticizing Sheffield City Council's response to protests regarding Sheffield's street trees. We are pleased to see such member-led initiatives, and would welcome calls for single-issue meetings from other members. You can read the latest developments on the trees at the Sheffield Trees Action Group website.
The USS pension fund has made the headlines this summer, with sensationalist reporting focusing in on an accounting figure which has little relevance to the scheme's health. The figure that matters much more is one which will appear in the triennial valuation, due in September. Early signs are that there has been some softening of the 'reckless prudence' which was a hallmark of 2014's valuation, although there is likely to remain significant damage from a self-inflicted risk-management measure known as Test 1. We are working well with the university on this issue, as so far our priorities seem to be closely aligned. That said, members could start preparing themselves for the worst case, where a sturdy defense may be needed of a pension scheme well worth holding on to.
This summer also saw significant coverage on pay inequality, with the BBC's list of high earners revealing a startling gender disparity, and politicians starting to focus on eye-watering pay for Vice Chancellors in the context of soaring student fees and stagnating staff wages. Recent legislation mandates that employers publish their gender pay gaps; this University has been acutely aware of its own gender pay discrepancies for a number of years, and we have been working with them to understand the data and highlight the problems. We hope, ultimately, that the university will commit to some actions to alleviate the problem locally.
Two fairly significant changes for the coming academic year are the mass roll-out of lecture capture and a shift towards Saturdays for open days. Following a useful Action Group in June, we have written a letter to Wyn Morgan in which we acknowledge the benefits that lecture capture can bring while remaining concerned about the opt-out process. We have requested that the policy removes the requirement for Head of Department approval for opt-out so that lecturers will retain autonomy over pedagogical decisions, and await a response. Saturday open days are likely to affect a large number of our members and we are continuing to discuss how these will be handled by the university, having pointed out that time-off-in-lieu, a suggested mechanism for reimbursing time worked on a Saturday, is all but meaningless to most academic staff.
Finally, members voted in an indicative ballot earlier in the summer to accept the 1.7% pay settlement resulting from the national negotiations. With this being another big effective pay cut, and salaries below where they were in the late 1990s in real terms, it begs the question: can you see this turning around? And if not, any thoughts on where it will lead us? Answers on a postcard to the usual address.
Sheffield UCU Committee
Are you up to speed on 'Prevent'?
The Prevent duty, part of the government's counter-terrorism strategy, came into effect for higher education institutions in September 2015. It requires all HEIs to have due regard to the need to prevent people from being drawn into terrorism. UCU nationally has been campaigning against Prevent since it came in, with concerns that range from the possibility of infringement on academic freedom to certain groups being targeted due to prevailing narratives around extremism. You can read more about UCU's response to Prevent, and download posters expressing that 'I dissent from Prevent'.
Over the last two years a range of policies and procedures have been put in place here at Sheffield that include Prevent duty actions. As a branch we're interested in hearing from members who have experienced problems relating to the Prevent duty. Have you been prevented from putting on an event at short notice, for example? The external speakers policy requires 10 days to risk assess all external speakers, and we're aware of at least one case of someone being refused permission to speak. Please get in touch if you have any concerns or questions about how Prevent is being implemented.
Are you in a health and safety hot-spot?
We have managed to increase our number of trained Health and Safety representatives, and are hoping to make health and safety inspections of departments more routine in the future. If you are aware of health and safety issues where you work - this could be an environment detrimental to mental health equally as well as physical well-being - then please let us know, as some ideas of where needs attention helps us to plan.
#JobstownNotGuilty defendants found not guilty
If you were at our general meeting earlier in the year, you will recall that the branch passed a motion in support of a group of protestors who were accused of false imprisonment after a sit-down protest in Ireland. The most recent trial has resulted in not guilty verdicts for the six facing the charge, but the campaign continues to ensure that all remaining charges are dropped.
Thu 19 October, 13:00-14:00, General Meeting, Council Room, Firth Court
June Branch News: lecture capture, international staff and more
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June Branch News
Our Action Group discusses lecture capture with Wyn Morgan, international staff stay in our attention and we welcome new committee members
Our June Action Group took lecture capture as its theme, and we were joined by Wyn Morgan for the second half of the meeting to hear from members directly. There was healthy discussion, taking in the potential benefits to students alongside concern over the wording of the policy. In particular, there was general agreement among members that final authority over the ability to opt out lying with the Head of Department is an unprecedented level of managerial interference in the pedagogical process and seriously undermines the professional autonomy of teaching staff. The policy as it stands was considered to be largely acceptable, but this key element is a sticking point for members which we will be asking the university to revisit.
A year after the EU referendum, the Government finally published its negotiating position on the rights of EU citizens, suggesting it put a 'generous' offer on the table. The treatment of EU staff, and international staff more generally, is of huge importance to higher education and directly effects many of our members. We are continuing to discuss the university's support for international staff, in particular the rising costs associated with remaining in the UK for staff and their families. We think the university will have to do more to justify its #WeAreInternational hashtag if it wants to retain its international expertise and attract new staff.
With national pay negotiations having reached an impasse earlier this year - the final offer was of more real-terms pay erosion - and with a draft valuation for the USS pension scheme imminent, we are pleased that UCU has called a commission into industrial action and bargaining with a remit to look into the strategies that have been pursued nationally and how to make these more effective in the future. There is no justification for the huge pay erosion endured by staff over the past 8 years, and 2014's pension downgrades were preventable. The question is: will universities change their approach to remuneration before anger reaches critical levels among staff?
Finally, our Annual General Meeting took place at the beginning of the month, and we were pleased to formally welcome new members to the committee. We also gave our thanks to two long-standing committee members who are retiring this summer - Jane Simm and Pablo Stern - who have both made huge contributions to the union's work in Sheffield. Luckily, Pablo will continue to act as treasurer and Jane is planning to stay on committee as a retired member. We always have space on our committee for members who would like to get involved: if you can spare one lunchtime a fortnight to discuss the pressing issues and how we can make progress on them, please do reply to this email.
Wishing you a pleasant start to the summer,
Sheffield UCU Committee
EU negotiations - what is the current state of affairs?
The government's newly published proposal for the rights of EU citizens in the UK outlines a new procedure that will in effect replace the current permanent residency requirement with a settled status, being compulsory for all who wish to stay after the UK’s departure from the EU. The published documents have left several crucial question unanswered, suggesting the Government will specify the timeframes and key deadlines at a later stage. It is important to note that the current offer is the initial negotiating position that might well change over the coming months. Moreover, several commentators (see below) argued that the outlined proposal is anything but generous, pointing to the EU 27’s offer preserving all existing rights of all citizens. A comprehensive analysis on the proposed changes can be found on Free Movement Website.
There have been a number of disputes occurring at other higher education institutions in our region and beyond. Leeds University called local strike action over a change to their statutes, with the university wanting new powers to sack staff. At Manchester Metropolitan University, there are job losses threatened due to the proposed closure of their Crewe campus. We give our full support to UCU members taking robust action in the face of questionable decision making by universities.
May Branch News: Support for international colleagues, lecture capture and more
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Come to our AGM, Thursday 8 June, 1pm (Council Room, Firth Court) and keep an eye out for our printed bulletin, to appear soon.
May Branch News
Our Deputy Vice Chancellor departs, we focus on the difficulties facing international staff, and lecture capture is prominent in members' concerns.
With the deputy Vice Chancellor, Shearer West, having announced her departure, we asked the university what this means for the Strategy Delivery Group and the reviews for which she had oversight. We are told that a direct replacement is being sought, and that temporary arrangements for covering any gap are being discussed. In particular, there isn't expected to be any change to the scope or schedule of the SDG's activity. The first of the reviews springing from the SDG are starting to bite, and we will do our best to ensure that the procedures that we negotiated will be followed and that staff get properly supported.
The university recently announced that it will reimburse the cost of residency cards backdated to 23 June last year and will offer legal support on immigration matters for EU staff. While we are pleased of the help for those who find themselves in an uncertain position due to last year's referendum, we think there is more that can be done, especially in light of rocketing charges for initial visas (including the new hard-to-defend 'NHS surcharge' and its proposed hike), as well as for the Indefinite Leave to Remain for non-EU international staff. Here (http://bit.ly/2rnPHew) is a short version of our discussion document outlining what we'd consider to be gold-standard help for international staff, both EU and non-EU. We hope that the university will support our suggestions which we think align perfectly with its welcome #weareinternational campaign. In addition, if you are a member of our international staff, please remember that UCU offer free legal advice for immigration matters (see below).
We have continued to discuss lecture capture with the university, who are set to roll the system out on an 'opt-out' basis in September. While our members have brought up a number of concerns, we were reassured to see guidance which stated that staff will retain all performance rights for their recordings, and that recordings cannot be used for performance management reasons without the lecturer's permission. We will endeavour to keep all members informed as this guidance firms up.
Thanks to all who took part in our consultation on the recent pay offer. We have fed all feedback in to Head Office, and the relevant national committees will be making decisions on the next steps soon. It seemed clear that our members viewed the recent award as dismal, and were supportive of a formal ballot in the autumn. After years of below inflation pay increases, it is hard to see how this year's award can be thought of as fair or acceptable.Finally, we sent four delegates to UCU's annual congress to vote on behalf of Sheffield members on a range of motions. A report will follow in due course, but for now you can see what happened on our Twitter account (https://twitter.com/sheffielducu).
Sheffield UCU Committee
Legal Advice for International Staff
Our union has partnered with Bindmans immigration law experts to provide advice to both EEA and non-EEA nationals, including partners and dependents of members. The union has also waived the three months waiting period for new members in gaining advice for the legal scheme. The FAQs on UCU’s website contains information on how members can get personalised advice. (https://www.ucu.org.uk/we-are-international & http://bit.ly/2kWgvyZ).