Branch updates

June 2019 USS Update

Published on 14 June 2019 at 16:37

Want to contribute to the ongoing UCU campaign over USS, but don't have very much time? Here is a short to do list:

1. Read this email to catch yourself up on the latest news, or if you prefer an auditory version, watch this talk given by our branch president Sam Marsh yesterday at the Open University.

2. Sign this petition, which calls for Trinity College, Cambridge, to reverse their decision to withdraw from the USS scheme (more details on this below).

3. (A larger time commitment item): We are in need of a new Pensions Officer and a new member of the University's USS Working Group to replace Jo Grady, the new General Secretary of UCU. Please email us if you are interested.

A new USS ballot

At the end of May, UCU's Higher Education conference (which was held on the second day of Congress 2019) voted overwhelmingly to ramp up preparations for an industrial action ballot over USS to begin in September. And as of 7 June, employers have been served a letter inviting them to take steps to avoid a re-ignition of the dispute.

Why has UCU decided to ballot? When the Joint Expert Panel's first report dropped in September, there was hope from all sides that it had the potential to end the dispute. Adopting its recommendations would mean a shift in philosophy from USS and rate increases low enough to negotiate over. Both UCU and Universities UK backed the JEP report, the latter with the strikes still fresh in the mind and eager to put the dispute to bed. The issue, as was always likely to be the case, has been with USS' response.

A USS timeline from September 2018-now

The first side-step by USS was their proposal for a new, 2018 valuation as a way to incorporate the issues raised by the JEP. This would not replace the 2017 one, but instead follow close on its heels and intercept the large contribution increases that were a consequence of the original valuation. Support for this approach was secured from the employers, and the Joint Negotiating Committee were shown information that if the JEP's recommendations were applied in full to the 2018 valuation, it would mean that the deficit would vanish and that contributions would fall (although no guarantees were made as to what the final figures would be).

As soon as agreement to proceed with a 2018 valuation was sealed, the USS executive team contacted the board and recommended dropping two of the three key proposals from the JEP report, while the only one that remained would be inextricably tied to 'contingent contributions' from employers. The justification for USS's rejection of the JEP's recommendations was that adopting them would send the 'discount rate' above the internal benchmarks the regulator uses to judge a valuation's prudence. Yet these internal benchmarks don't exist! The regulator has made this explicit via a cryptic stab at USS in its annual DB funding report. It is possible - indeed likely - that this was not the first that USS had heard of this issue from TPR. If true, USS' public statements to the contrary are all the more disingenuous.

This leads to where we are now: USS has rejected both the JEP report and the overwhelming evidence that their methodology is flawed, and is still relying on Test 1. Nothing has changed in their mindset or approach. Based on this, they insist the correct contribution rate is 33.7% of pay, an increase of 7.7% since before the dispute. There are attempts by USS to mask the situation by offering two other 'options', but these options are either highly unpalatable (trigger contributions which are more likely than not to set off) or disingenuous (even in the eyes of the regulator).

The University of Sheffield has published its response: it is not prepared to play the game and pick an option. This is not surprising. Employers and members alike both look on aghast at the mess that has developed for no clear reason. Added to this, Prof Jane Hutton, one of three UCU-nominated trustees, has recused herself from the board under "considerable pressure" after whistleblowing to the regulator on the obstruction she faced obtaining data on the valuation. This has now led to over 1,000 academics signing a petition to call for an inquiry into the scheme. There are serious issues here that need proper answers, and we suspect that we will continue to hear more about USS governance in the days to come.

The Academics for Pensions Justice group are preparing a legal challenge to USS to add to the mix. Their work now has the support of UCU, due to the motion sent to conference by Sheffield UCU, and given more teeth by an excellent amendment from Leeds UCU.

A further wrinkle in all of this is that Trinity College has announced their intention to leave the USS pension scheme, despite themselves acknowledging that it is a healthy scheme that poses essentially no risk to their endowment. While Trinity's withdrawal does not put the scheme at immediate risk, we are very aware of the possibility that USS will use it as a rationale for further changes or attacks on our pensions. Additionally, we view this action by the Trinity College Council and Fellows as a betrayal of the collective HE community, which fundamentally relies on cross-institutional collaboration in all areas of education, including our working conditions and benefits. It is not too late for Trinity College to reverse this decision, and we are in support of this petition that calls for Trinity to do so, and for staff to withdraw their discretionary labour from the College in the meantime.

What now?

So, to return to the initial question: why a ballot? Because this dispute is far from over. Employers are losing faith in how things are being handled by USS yet failing to publicly call out the problems, propping up a malign administration in the process and allowing money to be siphoned out of the sector. Failing to push back now will lead to USS tightening their grip, making it easier for them to shrug off the second report of the JEP. Employers will almost certainly start planning for ways to mitigate a 2020 valuation which shows more of the same. We will face big problems in the future.

What is at stake is the same as ever: the future of the DB scheme. It is tragic that we're heading back towards a ballot for strike action. But employers know what they need to do to avert it: call out the disastrous internal governance of USS and make sure that there is a major change of direction, or, failing that, pick up the tab for the contribution increases.

We will try our best to keep you informed of developments as they occur, as the situation is currently fast-moving and uncertain.

May Branch News: UCU democracy in action

Published on 23 May 2019 at 15:49

Several of our members have asked us to start our branch newsletters with a short ‘to do list’ of ways you can still be involved in UCU this month if you don’t have very much time. Here is the inaugural list.

1. Come to our action group on the Academic Careers Pathways (ACP) on 29 May, 1-2pm, in Hicks F24

2. Come to our Annual General Meeting on 6 June, 1-2, and our end of the year party on 14 June (details below)

3. The library at the Oxford Language Centre is under threat of closure, under a set of circumstances that are extremely concerning. Sign this change.org petition to support Oxford UCU’s campaign to save the library, or signal boost the campaign via social media. (This is just one of many important online campaigns going on. See our twitter account for more you can support!)

4. Read branch news (today), our USS update (coming soon), and our Congress delegates’ report (coming soon).

These lists will vary from month to month, but the one item which will be on every list is to take 15 minutes to read branch news, and our other email or blog updates. In a week when you are incredibly busy, the best way you can support UCU is to keep up with what is going on, so that in the weeks when you have more time, you’ll feel more prepared to get involved.

National UCU News

GS Election

Voting has ended for the election of UCU’s next General Secretary, and the results will be out tomorrow, so keep your eyes open for the famous Friday email. We will also be covering the result on social media. Our thanks to everyone who voted!

Congress 2019

UCU's annual Congress begins this Saturday. Congress is the primary policy-making body for UCU, and there are a large number of important motions and rule changes being discussed over the course of the long weekend, which are all detailed in the full agenda.

Sheffield is sending five branch delegates this year: Sam Marsh, Emma Nagouse, Robyn Orfitelli, Jo Grady, and Mark Pendleton. In addition, Jess Meacham is attending on behalf of the Academic Related Professional Services (ARPS) member committee, and Sam Morecroft is going as a Yorkshire-Humber regional observer.

One of the most important items on the Congress agenda is the interim report of the Democracy Commission, and their recommendations for increasing accountability and transparency in UCU. Here is our brief summary of the Democracy Commission and their important work.

We will be providing sporadic updates throughout the weekend on the Democracy Commission recommendations, the two motions Sheffield has sent to Congress, and other motions that we believe are of special interest to Sheffield UCU. We will also be circulating a delegates report after Congress is over. But if you want live updates throughout the weekend, we recommend following the @ucu twitter account or the hashtag #ucu2019.

USS Update

So much has happened with USS over the past 10 days that we will be devoting a separate email to update you very soon. In the meantime, we recommend all members read this exposé by Josephine Cumbo.

Local SUCU News

#LetAhmedStay

University of Sheffield PhD student and UCU member Ahmed Sedeeq has won his case against the Home Office and has been granted humanitarian protection for five years. We want to thank everyone who fought for Ahmed to be allowed to stay, but especially Unis Resist Border Controls, who started the Let Ahmed Stay campaign, and have campaigned tirelessly for him for over a year. Ahmed also appreciated the strong showing of support UCU members provided. Ahmed’s case is just one of many caused by the Home Office’s Hostile Environment policies, but we will keeping standing together to push back until these xenophobic, racist procedures are eliminated.

Metrics and the ACP

We are concerned and disappointed that this university continues to embed metrics into almost every aspect of our jobs, the most recent example of which is the newly introduced Academic Careers Pathways (ACP). As the ACP is being rolled out across faculties, we are hearing worrying reports of the way it is being interpreted and employed, and we are calling an action group to discuss how we might respond as a branch on 29 May, 1-2pm, in Hicks F24. If you are concerned about the ACP, please attend! We anticipate that the actions that come out of this meeting will work nicely in tandem with those arising from the very well attended metrics action group that was held on 1 May.

Working Group: Developing collaborations with Palestine

Arising out of a motion from out 7 March GM, we are holding a Palestine working group on 7 June at 3:30pm, in Coffee Revolution in the Student Union. We will be working towards developing collaborations and ultimately a document of our intentions to take to management.

Upcoming events

Our AGM will be on Thursday 6th June, at 1pm in the Council Room in Firth Court. Please put the date in your diaries! The AGM covers a range of important business, including annual reports from branch officers, and the election of a new branch committee. We will also be updating you on the outcomes of our negotiations with management on our local USS grievance, and asking for your feedback on how to proceed. AGM Agenda

Don’t miss our end of the year party on 14 June from 6pm in the Showroom Cinema! All Sheffield UCU members and friends of Sheffield UCU are invited. There will be food, a private bar, and a dance floor. Please book your ticket asap so we can order appropriate catering.

March Branch News: A new round of pay negotiations

Published on 29 March 2019 at 13:31

Wondering what the latest news is on a particular campaign or issue? All of our monthly branch newsletters are archived online, or you can search our archived blog posts for more detailed reporting on specific campaigns.

Upcoming meetings

3 April: Action Group focusing on developing civil society links with Palestine and setting up a local group in support. This action group arose out of a motion which was passed unanimously at our last branch General Meeting. Please come along! 1-2pm in Hicks F24

National UCU News

USS update

As of 15 March, the Joint Expert Panel closed submissions for its second phase, which will focus on the governance of USS. We know that an extensive set of submissions was sent in, including this clear and detailed submission from Felicity Callard (Birkbeck, UoL) and Nick Hardy (University of Birmingham), and we expect the JEP’s second report, when it comes out, to be extremely informative.

Members may also be interested in reading the University of Sheffield’s official response to the UUK consultation on USS, which was based on the hard work of our local USS working group, and released earlier this month.

The response makes it clear that our current predicament is due to the recalcitrance of USS, and is in line with similar sentiments expressed publicly by several other universities, including Oxford. It now remains to be seen whether the transparency deficit shown by Bill Galvin and the USS trustee will continue. The trustee board met yesterday to finalise the 2018 valuation. We may not know anything immediately, but there is a Joint Negotiating Committee meeting scheduled for next Wednesday, and we expect to hear more then, if not before.

Pay Negotiations

This week, the 5 HE trade unions that are part of new JNCHES submitted our 2019-2020 joint claim, to which the Universities and Colleges Employers Association (UCEA) has responded:

"The employers open the negotiations, on behalf of the participating universities, with an initial envelope for discussion of 1.3% across all the elements of the pay claim."

We are floored by the utter disrespect shown by not only this pay offer, which would represent yet another real terms pay cut, but also by the employer once again ignoring our requests to seriously address pay inequality, casualisation, and the sector workload crisis. As the VC of this university, and a board member of UCEA, we expect Prof Koen Lamberts to stand against the continued degradation of pay and working conditions in HE by speaking out against this insulting offer. To this end, we have written the attached letter.

In the letter, we say: "Staff morale and goodwill is dangerously low and falling." This is an understatement. The 2018 Staff Staff survey saw a decline in ratings on 74% of questions, with the largest declines coming from questions about university leadership. There are departments in which staff confidence regarding the direction of the university, and satisfaction with the level of respect shown to staff by leadership have dropped into the teens. We are at a crisis point, and if our employer wants to avoid irreparable harm, they need to reverse years of damaging policies.

This month, HESA have released financial data for 2015-2018 into the public domain. The employer has repeatedly claimed that our pay cuts are due to 'times being tough', while simultaneously diverting funds to new, expensive building projects, and initiatives that benefit the highest levels of management.

We will be scrutinising this data, and those claims, quite closely.

Strike Solidarity

This month Further Education colleges across the country were striking over pay, including locally at Bradford. Conditions in FE have been eroded even harder than those in HE over the last decade, and we stand in solidarity with UCU members who are taking action.

Even closer to home, teachers at Bradfield School were on strike on Wednesday over proposed redundancies and cuts. We know that our members include parents of students at Bradfield, and we send our support to all teachers, pupils and parents affected by the proposed changes. The picket was lively and well-attended.

National Elections

Thanks to all of you who came along to our VP hustings event in February, or who tweeted or emailed questions to the candidates. Vicky Blake of Leeds UCU was elected VP, which means she will serve a four year term on the UCU presidential team. We were also delighted that Jo Grady, our pensions officer, was elected to the NEC, along with many other excellent branch activists. You can view the full results of the elections here.

You'll be aware that Sally Hunt resigned her position as General Secretary at the end of February on the grounds of ill health, and that an election process will be underway shortly to replace her. We wish Sally all the best for the future, and will be in touch again about the General Secretary election once nominations for the position have closed on 8 April.

Congress

UCU's annual meeting will be held in Harrogate at the end of May, and the first report of the Congress Business Committee (i.e. an initial order of business) has been published - you can read it here. Sheffield is as usual sending a full complement of branch delegates, who were elected at our last General Meeting following an all-member call for nominations. Our proposed rule change and both of our motions, which were voted on at our last GM, have been ordered onto the Congress agenda. (The minutes and motions from our March GM are available here).

If you get a chance, please have a look at the motions that we're expecting to debate at Congress and let us have any feedback or thoughts on any of them. We would be very happy to devote an action group or part of our upcoming 9 May GM to discussion of Congress motions.

Democracy Commission

The interim report of the Democracy Commission will be taken to Congress, and the order of business in the above section contains some important rule changes that will be voted on there. The Democracy Commission has worked hard this year to propose changes to UCU's structures that will increase accountability, transparency and the voice of rank and file members within the union, and we'll be holding a branch meeting shortly to discuss this and any other ideas you might have for how we can continue to work to improve things - both at national and local levels.

Local SUCU News

Get involved: UCU Rep 1 training

Interested in learning more about UCU, campaigning, and how to put your trade union rights to work in your department? UCU offers an excellent series of training courses for branch activists and reps who want to become more involved in UCU’s work, which are covered in your membership fee, and also include reimbursement for travel and childcare costs. The introductory Rep 1 training course scheduled regularly throughout the year, and there is an upcoming session in Leeds from 8-10 May, which still has places available. If you plan to register for the course, please contact us at ucu@sheffield.ac.uk to let us know; as a member of UCU, you have a statutory right to time off to engage in protected union activities, including training, and we are happy to support you in securing your statutory right to time off.

USS Grievance Update

We have now met four times with members of HR and the University Executive Board, and have a fifth meeting planned, to discuss our local grievance on USS. This was passed at an extraordinary branch meeting via a member-led motion. As a reminder, the demands of this grievance are:

A one-time pay award to all members who participated in the 2018 USS strike, to come from the existing University of Sheffield financial surplus.

Renewal of management’s commitment to use the strike pay deductions to support students as agreed by representatives of UCU, the SU, and UEB in June 2018, and complete transparency over how this money has been spent.

An apology from the Office of the Vice Chancellor.

We are pleased to report that the University has agreed to our second demand, and has made a spreadsheet outlining the use of strike pay deductions publicly available. We are continuing to negotiate with the University regarding our other demands, and will be able to update you soon.

REF: EGM, Action Group, and Code of Practice consultation

On 8 February we held an Emergency General Meeting on REF 2021, following the announcement that universities will be allowed to submit to the REF research ‘outputs’ produced by staff who have been made redundant. The meeting included a very thoughtful and detailed discussion of output portability, impact case studies, the misuse of internal stocktake exercises, and a growing sense that any version of the REF, however organised, is not fit for purpose. The EGM also unanimously passed a motion on REF portability.

As we reported at last week’s Action Group on REF, members of the branch committee were also invited to a consultation earlier this month on the University’s draft Code of Practice for REF 2021. The Code of Practice sets out how the University will identify individuals and ‘outputs’ for submission to the REF. We were glad finally to be consulted on the development of the draft code, and we pressed for the University to undertake institution-wide consultation on this important document. We are pleased that the University has today published its draft code on its website, and is soliciting feedback from individual members of staff, as well as from departments, faculties, and committees. We strongly encourage members to send feedback on the draft code to ref@sheffield.ac.uk by the deadline of 1 May 2019. If you would like to do so, please also cc ucu@sheffield.ac.uk when sending feedback, so that we can identify areas of concern to raise in our next meeting with the University on this issue.

We are pleased that the Code states that the University will not submit the ‘outputs’ of former staff who were made redundant whilst holding permanent contracts, or were part way into a fixed-term contract. We are very disappointed, however, that the University has flatly rejected our request - passed unanimously at our EGM in February - that ‘outputs’ produced by any former member of staff should not be submitted without the consent of the former staff member.

We have also proposed that the University incorporate two ‘no detriment’ clauses into the code:

"The scores assigned to individual outputs in the course of REF stocktakes and the final output selection process will not be used by the University as a measure of research performance of an individual member of staff, will not lead to any contractual changes, and will not be regarded as material to the University’s probation, promotion, or hiring procedures."

and

"Submission or non-submission of staff on 'research-only' contracts will not be used by the University as a measure of research performance of an individual member of staff, will not lead to any contractual changes, and will not be regarded as material to the University’s probation, promotion, or hiring procedures."

The University expressed some openness to these proposals, and is currently considering the wording we have proposed. You may wish to comment on this in your feedback to ref@sheffield.ac.uk.

Upcoming Events

May Day

An early date for your diary - Sheffield will be hosting May Day events for the first time in many years this year. On Saturday 4th May, please come down to Devonshire Green for a march and rally at 1pm, with speakers including Len McCluskey of Unite. The rally will be followed by events at Dina on Cambridge Street, with a panel debate on 'economics for the many' with speakers including Labour MP Rebecca Long-Bailey and New Statesman economic commentator Grace Blakeley, and food and music stretching into the evening. We're really pleased to be supporting this event and will be there with the branch banner - it would be great to see lots of our members out supporting and celebrating Sheffield's labour movement and working class history.

LGBT+ Research Conference

UCU's LGBT+ research conference will be held at the University of Manchester on Friday 17 May. Find out more, and register online here.

Annual General Meeting

Our AGM will be on Thursday 6th June, at 1pm in the Council Room in Firth Court. Please put the date in your diaries! The AGM covers a range of important business, including elections of the branch committee and branch officers for next year, an annual report from the treasurer, and updates on important aspects of branch work.

If you're interested in being on the branch committee, holding an officer position, or otherwise getting more involved in the branch, please get in touch - we'll be sending out information about the nomination processes nearer the time of the AGM but are always happy to talk informally about it too.

January Branch News: Say it again, Say it Louder!

Published on 25 January 2019 at 8:42

National UCU News

Ongoing Ballot: Say it again, Say it Louder

UCU’s reballot on our Fair Work and Fair Pay dispute opened last week, and by now you should have received your ballot in the mail. If you need a new ballot, request one here. And if you aren’t sure what contact details UCU has for you can check them here.

We know that many of you returned your ballots in the Autumn, and now you are being asked to do it again, but the issues we are in dispute over are simply too important to allow anti-trade union law to silence us. In the Autumn, 42% of UCU members responded to our ballot, and of those, almost 80% voted in favour of strike action. This is an incredibly strong response demonstrating that our members will not tolerate the continued and increasing inequalities in pay and working conditions in higher education.

Despite this strong response, we have seen no action on the part of our employers to address the concerns of the claim. They are hiding behind the 50% threshold and so we need to beat it, and make them come to the table to negotiate. However you vote, please return your ballot! We need to Say it Again, Say it Louder!

Remember, this ballot is aggregated. That means we must surpass 50% response rate together, and it means that every single vote from Sheffield supports not only our branch, but the entirety of UCU higher education.

On that note, Save the Date for Ballot Day on 5th February. Sheffield, along with many other branches across the UK, are holding a day of events centered around sending in our ballots and the issues at stake in this ballot.

Look out for an email from us asking you to let us know if you've posted your ballot. The more who tell us they've voted, the fewer we have to chase!

USS Latest

As we approach the anniversary of the USS strike (Feb 22nd) the USS dispute continues to move forward. The first report of the Joint Expert Panel (JEP) from last Autumn not only vindicated UCU's position that the scheme is not in trouble, but also made a series of recommendations which offer something like a "no detriment" resolution to the dispute. These recommendations were unanimously backed by all members of the JEP, and have since received support from UCU and UUK representatives, along with the actuarial advisors of UCU and UUK (First Actuarial and Aon). We know that the process has been frustratingly slow at times, but this is an enormous shift from our position 12 months ago which would not have been possible without our unprecedented strike action last spring, and the continued pressure being put on USS by activists around the UK.

The most recent developments have not been straightforward, as USS have embarked on a 2018 valuation which - contra the support of all of the parties mentioned above - plans to accept only some of the JEP recommendations. Negotiations are ongoing, and there is a lot of activity behind the scenes. We believe it is time for UUK to use their influence to lobby USS to implement the JEP in full, and home in on a solution to the dispute.

For any members wanting more specific details on the recent developments with USS, SUCU Pensions Officer and National Dispute Committee member Jo Grady, and Branch President and USS negotiator Sam Marsh will be leading a session to update members fully, including a Q&A. The date for this is Wednesday 13th February, at 1pm in Hicks LT2. Please do come along!

Sheffield UCU News

We are hopeful that the frenzy of restructuring of the university, particularly of our professional services departments, may be slowing. Huge damage has been done to morale without much obvious gain, and we have let it be known to university management, including our new VC, that we do not have confidence in the direction the university has been taking. The restructuring has not stopped completely, with research support in departments currently in the firing line among others, so please support your colleagues where you can while we, along with the other Staffside unions, continue to push back.

We have filed a collective grievance on behalf of our members over the USS strikes last year, in line with a motion brought by a member to a general meeting in the autumn and passed overwhelmingly. Negotiations are expected to start soon, and we will keep you informed of progress.

We have invited all three candidates in the running for UCU's national presidential role to Sheffield on the lunchtime of Tuesday 19 February for a question and answer 'hustings'. The successful candidate becomes increasingly important within UCU over the subsequent three years, culminating in them chairing the supreme decision-making bodies within the union. We are very pleased that Jo McNeil and Vicky Blake will be attending; Adam Ozanne has declined. Please do come to make sure UCU's democracy is as informed as possible.

Finally, we are desperately in need of members who are prepared to act as a caseworker in support of colleagues going through difficulties. Training is provided, and time off must be given by the university. Please write to us at ucu@sheffield.ac.uk to find out how you can get involved.

Upcoming events

• 19 February: Hustings for the UCU presidential election, with Vicky Blake and Jo McNeil, lunchtime (precise time and venue tbc).
• 19 February: Save the date! Sheffield UCU is hosting an evening screening of Nae Pasaran, "the true story of the workers' solidarity against Pinochet". Full details to follow.
• 26 February – 2 March: The Lantern Theatre is putting on ‘Rouse, Ye Women!’ - a folk ballad retelling the story of Mary Macarthur and the women chainmakers’ strike. Tickets available here.

December Branch News: Open for a festive treat!

Published on 21 December 2018 at 16:54

SUCU News

Offered thanks to our students and @SheffieldSU for their solidarity during the USS Strike

Called for the branch to file a collective grievance with @sheffielduni on behalf of all of our members, as this strike action would have been unnecessary had @universitiesUK and #USS acted transparently and in good faith. Instead, we were forced to withhold our labour to defend our pensions, and @sheffielducu members suffered an effective pay cut of up to 4%

Demanded that TUoS commit to a one-off pay award equivalent to the wage deductions related to the USS dispute, to be paid to members no later than February 2019. For the avoidance of doubt, this should be funded by the university's surplus, not from funds earmarked for students.

What the total amount of strike deductions is i.e. the amount of the available money that is earmarked for the benefit of students, welfare and other departmental projects

What impact this fund has had so far i.e. how much and on what has the money been spent on

What the outstanding balance is and how will this be spent to further support students.

Happy holidays!