Since the beginning of the semester we have had one of the busiest periods in the branch’s history. In early September we sent a detailed email to members with an update on health and safety, and launched a survey to hear your views. We have held a series of meetings throughout the semester to discuss issues raised by members around the current approach to learning and teaching.
We wrote to University management just prior to the start of the semester outlining five principles that we considered essential for a safe return to teaching on campus. In early October we held an EGM to discuss the branch response to the start of the semester, and at that meeting determined that we would submit a collective grievance along with other campus unions over what remain significant concerns over health and safety on campus. On 10th October that grievance was formally submitted (you can view the text here). The half-term holiday has delayed the process somewhat, but we meet representatives from University management again on Thursday 5th November to seek to resolve the grievance.
On 15th October at our General Meeting, we updated members on the progress of the grievance and presented a motion of no confidence in UEB, which passed overwhelmingly. Turnout at the meeting was higher than we have seen in some years, with more than 300 of you present to hear the discussion. Following the branch vote of no confidence, and requests from numerous members who were unable to attend the meeting, we have made an open letter version of the statement available for any member of the university community who wishes to sign it. Please note that you need to be signed in to your Sheffield address in order to sign. You can find a link to further contextual information here.
We were disappointed to learn on 4th November that there is no intention on the part of University management to alter our provision further. At our next branch meeting we will report back on the progress of the grievance and discuss and determine our next steps.
We want to ensure that all members are aware that we continue to meet the University every week to discuss ongoing issues thrown up both by the Covid situation generally and in terms of health and safety in particular. If you have concerns or questions that have not been covered in our meetings or discussions recently, please get in touch.
National UCU news
At the end of September a Higher Education Sector Conference was held. You can view the motions that were passed at that meeting here.
UCU was due to hold an interim online Congress at the end October. Unfortunately due to technical challenges the event had to be postponed. We will update the branch as soon as we can on arrangements for the rescheduled event.
USS update
We finally have the outcome of the new valuation methodology employed by USS, and the results are obscene. In what appears to be an attempt to blackmail employers into allowing the scheme significant influence over institutions’ financial decision-making, USS are threatening total contributions of 68% (compared to just 26% in 2017)! USS claim that they’ve followed the JEP recommendations, but by coupling the JEP-proposed dual-discount rate with a rebadged Test 1 (now referred to as ‘Metric A’) they have engineered massive deficits and sent costs spiralling. It goes without saying that this cannot stand. Our scheme has been hijacked, and all efforts now must be put into getting it back.
Mercifully, University of Birmingham VC David Eastwood stepped down as chair of the scheme last month (shortly after finalising the valuation) and has been replaced by incoming independent director Kate Barker. With two new additions to the board from UCU (Andrew Brown and Helen Shay) and one from UUK (Paul Curran), there is potential for a culture change within USS, though its hugely divisive CEO Bill Galvin remains. Meanwhile, please don’t forget about Jane Hutton - fired from the board last year, and in the process of taking USS to court for unfair dismissal. We hope that justice prevails and anybody responsible for wrong-doing is properly held to account.
Anti-casualisation update
We have had a number of productive negotiation meetings with HR on casualisation.
We have made progress on eliminating term time only teaching contracts with a paper based on our proposed changes being submitted to UEB. As a result of successful meetings with management, we are working on establishing a university wide best practice guide for employing GTAs. HR has also agreed with us on the principle that all members of staff need to be included in all staff communications. We are currently working on establishing a set of guiding principles for employing Associate Tutors, Contracted Teaching Assistants and University Teachers including contract length and adequate research time. If you’d like to share your thoughts on this, please email ucu@sheffield.ac.uk
A meeting of fixed-term contract research staff took place in early September, and an open and informal mailing list was set up to discuss issues specifically related to casualised researchers. You can sign up here if you want to be added to the list. One particular concern, is people on fixed term contracts with more than four years of service not being moved onto open ended contracts.
If you have been on a Fixed Term Contract for more than 4 years and have not been moved onto an Open Ended Contract, please get in touch.
Finally, we are still looking for reps to join our departmental casualised rep network. If you want to get involved with issues around fixed-term research and teaching contracts, GTA contracts, TTO contracts, and fractional contracts, sign up here.
Many thanks to those of you who attended the anti-racism workshop hosted by San Gopalakrishnan of the BAME staff network. The session is available to view here - please have a look if you couldn’t attend. If you attended the event, please complete the feedback form available here.
An anti-racism action group was held in early October and further updates on this work will be sent shortly.
Events
Meeting for PS members, 11th November at 1.00pm
Departmental reps and contacts meeting, 17th November at 1pm
General meeting for all members, 24th November at 1pm
July branch news
Published on
Welcome to the July edition of branch news. This is a very busy time for the branch and more than ever it’s important for members to keep up to date with the work we’re doing. If you have any questions, comments or concerns about any of the items here, please get in touch and we will do our very best to get back to you as soon as we can.
Get involved: are you interested in doing more with the branch? Sign up here.
Come to the next all-union meeting: Thursday 30th July at 1pm. Sign up here.
Formal consultation process
On 9th July the campus trade unions were served a letter under section 188 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992. On the same day, the Vice Chancellor emailed all staff (‘Important update on measures to protect University finances’) outlining some of the possible actions the University is considering in terms of changes to our pay and conditions.
We strongly encourage all members to read the information outlined on this page under ‘Measures to protect University finances’, and in particular the section ‘What happens if the trade unions do not agree following consultation’. This outlines that the University is proposing to unilaterally alter our contracts where agreement cannot be reached via a process called ‘dismissal and re-engagement’ - that is, sacking and re-hiring all of us on worse terms and conditions.
You may have seen local press coverage of this plan, in particular this article in the Yorkshire Post (‘University of Sheffield denies plan to sack 8,000 staff and rehire them on lower pay’, 16th July 2020), and many of you attended the meetings we held in that week, both for UCU members alone and with the other campus unions.
In our meetings that week and in our town hall meeting last week, one theme emerged loud and clear from many of you - that you consider it entirely unacceptable that staff on lower pay should bear the brunt of any cost-cutting measures in a context where University executives enjoy vast salaries.
We expect to hold many more meetings over the course of the consultation process. Please get involved and share your views. UCU, UNISON, Unite and GMB are working closely together on this process with the support of our regional officials and we will do everything we can to challenge the University’s assertion that cuts to staff salaries is the best solution to the current situation.
Now, more than ever, it is critical that we have UCU reps and contacts in every department across the university keeping an eye out for emerging issues and ensuring that all members are informed and engaged. Becoming a rep or contact is a low time commitment -- approximately one hour a month -- but makes all the difference for our strength as a union. If you are interested in becoming a rep or contact and would like to learn more, please contact Membership Officer Katy Fox-Hodess at katy.fox-hodess@sheffield.ac.uk.
Four Fights ballot
You should have received a ballot - closing on 29 July - via email on the offer from UCEA over the Four Fights dispute (email from Civica Election Services, subject line 'UCU consultative ballot'), following several updates over the last few weeks from Jo Grady, the General Secretary, and Paul Bridge, UCU’s head of Higher Education.
The negotiators, UCU’s Higher Education Committee and the branch committee are united in urging you to vote no to reject this offer. Voting no on the offer does not commit us to further industrial action at this stage.
You might find this article interesting on the argument for voting reject, written by the Corona Contract campaign who have worked tirelessly to defend casualised jobs in the sector over the last few months. This branch also voted to reject the offer at a meeting held in late May ahead of consultative meetings held with branch delegates from across the sector the following week.
Covid-19 negotiations
We continue to meet the University on a weekly basis to discuss and negotiate the ongoing impact of Covid-19 on our working conditions and the health, safety and wellbeing of all staff. On Friday 17th July we had a meeting specifically to discuss learning and teaching in the next academic year - we are very conscious that many of our members have concerns about timetabling, face to face teaching, and the shift to blended and online delivery of our programmes. The University is exploring, in discussion with us, changes to flexible working that would see teaching stretch into non-standard hours, and we are aware that consultation has begun in some departments on this already. We understand that the University is expecting these changes to be on a voluntary basis but has not yet committed to it being only carried out on this basis. We encourage all of you to respond to the consultation frankly, and the branch is aware that for many of our members teaching at non-standard hours is neither possible nor desirable.
We are also keen to hear from those of you who have concerns about the return to face to face teaching, or about the University’s plans to ensure the safety of new students when they arrive in Sheffield in September. The current return to campus risk assessment correctly notes that the priority is to eliminate risk where possible, which means that all work that can be carried out remotely should be. We are aware that the research on the impact of Covid-19 is ongoing and changes frequently (see, for example, this recent study in Nature) and we are doing all we can to ensure that risk assessments and equality impact assessments reflect this. Please do contact us about this if you have information or thoughts about this.
Please note the announcement made in last week’s internal staff communications bulletin that staff can request up 10 days of annual leave be carried over into the next leave year.
Early career members update
In light of the requirement to make 15% cuts in department budgets, there has been a blanket ban on the hiring of GTAs in the Faculty of Social Sciences for next academic year. We are also beginning to hear about cuts to GTAs in other faculties and departments. At the moment, these cuts are being made at the Departmental and Faculty levels and are not University wide. If your department announces cuts to GTAs, please get in touch.
Over the past few weeks, we’ve been working hard to build a campaign around this. We held an emergency general meeting on GTA issues and prepared a campaign toolkit that people can use to help the fightback.
We have had some key wins in support for PGRs including the creation of a Covid-19 hardship fund and securing funded extensions for third year PGRs on University of Sheffield scholarships. There is still a lot of work to be done, however and we remain concerned about the adequacy of support for PGRs not in their final year, funding, extensions and the treatment of international and disabled PGRs.
Find out more about the work we’ve been doing in this area here.
Researchers on fixed-term contracts are facing particular issues due to uncertainties regarding job security (lack of contract renewal and employment prospects), fieldwork (lack of funding opportunities) and grant applications. If you want to join a group of ECRs organising across the university, please fill out this form (if you haven’t done so already) and you will be added to an ECR mailing list. Please also note that a meeting open to all ECRs across the university will be held on 8 September 1-2pm. More information and a link to the meeting will be sent in due course.
Researchers on fixed term contracts may not be aware that they are eligible to apply for extended electronic access to University of Sheffield resources at the end of their contact - please see here for details.
Black Lives Matter update
Following the death of George Floyd on 25th May at the hands of the United States’ police, which sparked worldwide protests and movements of solidarity with Black people being disproportionately affected by police violence and institutional racism, we held an EGM on 11th June in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement and to work towards racial justice. Abdullah Mohamed and San Gopalakrishnan gave updates on the work they are doing as part of BLM Sheffield and the University’s BAME Staff Network, respectively. The EGM was attended by about 75 members, who approved two branch donations, each of £250, to Black Lives Matter UK and Lesbian Asylum Support Sheffield.
Our branch and our members are concerned about police violence and institutional racism, and it is clear we have not done enough to combat racism at the University of Sheffield. As part of this commitment to do more, and to hear from members about how we can do so, we are organising a second EGM in solidarity with BLM movements. San Gopalakrishnan of the BAME Staff Network will deliver a session aimed to explore racism in society with a particular focus on recent issues, and more specifically racism within Higher Education. There will also be a discussion on helping members tackle difficult conversations as well as practical intervention tips. We will send more information closer to the date, but do keep the date of Thursday 3rd September (1-2pm) in your diary!
Besides maintaining a supportive and ongoing dialogue with the BAME staff network, we are currently working on two further initiatives. First, we would like to organise workshops with educators specialised in anti-racism work. Second, together with members who volunteered to help out, we are developing a list of resources about how racism works (and how to resist and dismantle it) specifically in unions and in higher education. As Zahra Bei mentions, reading up on racism isn’t enough - but as a starting point we recommend the book ‘Ethnicity, Race and Inequality in the UK’ (open access) by Bridget Byrne, Claire Alexander, Omar Khan, James Nazroo and William Shankley, as well as this curated list of resources put together by the University library, based on suggestions from people across the University (here is the recommendation form). We also encourage members to suggest their own motions and statements on challenging racism in the workplace, which would help inform our branch position on this. If you’d like to get involved or feedback on any of this, please do get in touch with us.
If you have participated in the Sheffield BLM event on 6 June, or more generally would like to be kept updated by the recently created Sheffield BLM group, please fill out this form.
As we know, racism in the UK can at times overlap with the Hostile Environment faced by migrants. As such we are also seeking to support members employed on a student or work visa who may face particular difficulties in the present time. If you are an international member of staff or student and haven’t filled out this survey, please do so now, and share with your networks.
Disabled Members Forum update
With our fellow campus trade unions, Unite and UNISON, we hosted a joint forum for disabled members via Zoom on 9 July with a good turnout. This was a confidential space created for individuals to share their experiences as a disabled worker at the University of Sheffield, particularly in these unprecedented times and to provide specific updates to members about current disability work that’s taking place.
The Vice Chair of UCU”s national disabled members standing committee shared an update with members about some of the issues and concerns that have been raised nationally, such as individual experiences and perceptions around reasonable adjustments; fear of disclosure; and the intersectionality of disability with other protected characteristics. Members discussed various issues affecting them, including concerns around returning to working on-site; securing reasonable adjustments at work and through the promotions process; and redundancy-related concerns. We also discussed the ongoing work to create an institutional Disability Action Plan - formal consultation on that will begin shortly.
UCU’s national Disabled Members Standing Committee also hosts an open Tuesday ‘Tea Break’ meeting, held fortnightly from 3-4pm. This is now held on Microsoft Teams and disabled UCU members are welcome to join by getting in touch with Elane Heffernan (Chair of the DMSC) - elaneheffernan@btinternet.com. The Disabled Members Network also recently put out a statement - ‘No Return to Discrimination’. Please do share this information as a means for Disabled members to connect and organise.
Nablus twinning update
On 6th July 2020 a meeting was held between members of Sheffield UCU and our colleagues from SHU UCU to discuss the Nablus twinning initiative. Sheffield TUC has officially joined as well, and discussions are ongoing with TU members across Sheffield. Several local elected representatives were also there, including Councilors Neale Gibson and Adam Hurst, Lord Mayor Tony Downing and staff from Louise Haigh's office. Also on the call were representatives from civil society organisations in Nablus and Sheffield.
There is a lot of enthusiasm about the idea of creating relationships between Sheffield and Nablus universities through the trade unions. SUCU will follow up this meeting with further discussions among interested parties - if you are interested in getting involved in the branch’s Palestine work, please contact us on ucu@sheffield.ac.uk.
May-June Branch Newsletter
Published on
Welcome to the May/ June edition of SUCU branch news, which is another bumper edition. We don’t have any ordinary general meetings planned for July and August, in line with our usual meeting schedule, but given how busy the branch is with work relating to the ongoing impact of Covid-19, we do expect to be calling more Extraordinary General Meetings soon. Please do keep an eye out for those if you are not on annual leave, and if you have any questions or comments on any of the items here, please get in touch.
Covid-19 updates: job losses and cuts
We continue to meet with the University on a weekly basis, alongside UNISON and Unite, to discuss the changes that we’re all experiencing as a result of Covid-19. We have significant concerns about the scale and pace of the decisions being made in response to outcomes that are not yet known.
On 10th June the University opened another Voluntary Severance Scheme (VSS), the third such scheme since 2009. The campus unions were given just 24 hours’ notice of the scheme opening and we were not consulted on its terms. Long-time members who remember previous schemes will be aware that the terms are less generous than they have been at some points in the past, and we advise anyone considering applying to the scheme to consider their options very carefully.
We are extremely concerned about the non-renewal of fixed term contracts and the potential impact on GTA roles as a result of the financial planning for next year currently being undertaken. Please see below for further details on how to support casualised colleagues in your work area. This forms part of a wider cost-cutting exercise in which budgets are being slashed across the institution and we fully appreciate that these are very anxious and uncertain times.
The University is required to do everything it can to make savings before it pursues compulsory redundancies and we will be scrutinising those efforts as closely as possible. We recently made a formal request for the financial information that we need in order to do that properly, and to which we are entitled under our recognition agreements.
As we move towards a planned return to some face-to-face teaching in September, we are conscious that members may have concerns relating to their health, workloads, childcare or other factors. We are working closely with the University on all aspects of health and safety arising from the return to work and we want to accurately represent the concerns you might have in those areas, so please do get in touch with us about this.
Casual and fixed-term contract organising updates
Members in departments across at least two Faculties are beginning to hear either that their fixed-term teaching contracts will not be renewed or that casual work they might have expected to undertake as GTAs is unlikely to be available next year. Thank you to all of you who have drawn attention to this on social media, solicited support from your students, and worked with the branch on developing a toolkit for resisting these changes. You can follow #PrecarityStories on twitter for personal testimony from affected members, much of which is harrowing reading. Please do everything possible to support casualised colleagues if you are on an open-ended contract.
Research-focused staff on fixed-term contracts are coming up against specific challenges in the face of drastic cuts and changes being implemented by the university - in particular grant and visa issues. A group of ECRs in the Interdisciplinary Centre of Social Sciences (ICOSS) has been discussing ways of responding to these challenges, and would like to reach out to other fixed-term researchers in similar positions across the university. To do this we are creating a mailing list, so if this is relevant to you please fill out this google form. (Please note: the date of 2020 that appears on the form can be modified as needed!). Data submitted on this form will only be used for the purposes of creating the mailing list and for better understanding the problems that are faced by fixed term researchers. All processing of data will be in line with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
You may have seen recent coverage in the local press of both these job losses and the voluntary severance scheme. The University is one of the largest employers in the city and job losses here have a knock on impact elsewhere. We were pleased to see that local MPs have written to Gavin Williamson recently to demand that the government do more to financially support the sector, and we’d urge you to make as much noise as you can about the likely impact of these losses: not just on our colleagues and friends, but on our students, and on the wider community.
Please have a look here at our toolkit for organising against the loss of casualised contracts and please get in touch with us if you have any questions or would like support from the branch committee on this.
On a national level, Corona Contract are working to solidify support for casualised jobs across branches and you can see more about the campaign on their website or follow on twitter. Please do support it: the loss of work for thousands of people in the early stage of their careers will be devastating for the sector.
Support for international PGR students
Please have a look at a letter written here by international PGR students and consider supporting.
Report back from branch Annual General Meeting (AGM)
On 4th June we held our AGM, which heard reports from the outgoing branch officers and the election of the new branch committee. Many grateful thanks to outgoing committee members who have put in a huge effort supporting the work of the branch over the years: Gill Brown, Miriam Miller, Lauren Selfe, Rob Stanton, Emma Nagouse and Grace Whitfield, and a warm welcome to members elected at the AGM or co-opted since the last one, Elena Simon, Caroline Metz, Andrea Genovese, Tim Herrick and Lisa Stampnitzsky.
We also discussed and passed a motion of support for a citywide initiative twinning with Nablus in the West Bank.
We need to alert you to a change to the subscription rates that wasn’t mentioned in the treasurer’s report at the AGM: the fourth subs band break has been raised from £20k to £22k, which means that members earning between £20k and £21,999 will see their subs reduce from £20.49 (£20.32 excluding the political fund) to £13.12 (£13.02), including the local subs. If you know anyone in this salary range who might be tempted to join at this news, please let them know.
Professional Services (PS) staff meetings
We continue to hold meetings for all PS members on a monthly basis and held the most recent one on Wednesday 24th June. The next dates are scheduled for 31st July and 27th August, both 1 - 2pm, and PS members will receive invitations and reminders nearer the time.
These meetings provide a forum for PS colleagues to get together and share concerns and discuss upcoming issues. Please go along to one if you haven’t yet, or tell other colleagues in your work area about them if you’re already a regular. We often hear that PS colleagues don’t feel fully represented by UCU and this is our main forum locally for rectifying that.
We are very keen to hear from any PS colleagues interested in being co-opted on to the branch committee, since for the first time in many years PS members are currently under-represented. Please get in touch with ucu@sheffield.ac.uk or jess.meacham@sheffield.ac.uk if you’d like to get involved.
Black Lives Matter and anti-racist organising
On 11th June we held an EGM to discuss Black Lives Matter and antiracism work at the University and within UCU. The meeting heard from speakers from the BAME staff network here at the University and from Sheffield BLM, before discussing the various ways that UCU members can support antiracism work at Sheffield. A range of actions and outcomes were agreed and committee members will take those forward. Do get in touch with us if you would like to help with work on this.
We will be hosting a workshop led by members of the BAME staff network - watch this space for more details and further information soon.
You may be interested in following the Sheffield BLM Facebook page.
TUC survey on BME workers and coronavirus
The massive and disproportionate impact of Covid-19 on black and minority ethnic workers has become clear in recent weeks. The TUC need your support to enable BME workers to share their experiences of unfair treatment and racism at work during this crisis. Please complete this survey and share with other BME colleagues.
Dispute updates and fighting fund levy
At the AGM, we also reported on the current status of the disputes with Universities UK and UCEA that have been ongoing throughout this academic year. UCU’s National Executive Committee met on the 8th June to decide the next steps in the dispute, which have been laid out in an email to all members from the General Secretary dated 11th June. We will be sending further updates ahead of the expected ballot on the Four Fights offer and the Sector Conference to determine the future of the USS dispute.
You will also have seen the recent emails from the General Secretary about the fighting fund levy. We intend to bring this to our next branch meeting to discuss a collective response to the announcement there, in the hope of seeking to avoid lower-paid and casualised colleagues being disadvantaged by it.
Disabled Members Forum - Thursday, 9 July, 2pm to 4pm
The three main campus trade unions, Unison, Unite and UCU, have been concerned for some time about significant issues disabled staff face at the university. These range from a general lack of awareness of disability by line managers, inconsistencies in access to and timeliness of reasonable adjustments, and more. Covid-19 has exacerbated these long term issues. We are engaged in current plans to create an institutional disability action plan, however we recognise that this needs to address the issues our disabled members face. Before formal consultation begins shortly, we have jointly called a cross trade union meeting to discuss the development of the action plan, Covid-19 and any other issues disabled staff at the university are facing. This meeting will be held via Zoom. Please register here, including any specific adjustments you need to facilitate your participation. We also encourage you to circulate this information to fellow disabled colleagues.