Today is National Voter Registration Day and UCU along with our partners at the National Union of Students (NUS) and the Bite the Ballot campaign are holding events and activities on campuses to encourage our colleagues and students to register to vote.
Can you help for an hour or two tomorrow in Sheffield?
Sheffield TUC are intending to hand out leaflets outside the Town Hall from 1130hrs till about 1.30pm.
Sheffield Peoples Assembly are holding a stall at Sheffield University – meet at the underpass near the Octagon Centre at 1130 till about 1.30 pm
You may be aware that declining voter turnout is likely to worsen under the new system of individual registration and that this is particularly likely to affect students and younger workers (currently 30% of 18-24 year olds are not even registered).
Please help us reach the campaign target of adding 250,000 young people to the electoral register by:
1. Distributing our joint NUS/UCU leaflets and posters to your colleagues and students
2. Circulating this link to the online voter registration page
3. Tweet using #NVRD and #GenerationVote and add this to your email footer
With the general election just months away there is a real danger that thousands of our students and colleagues will not be registered to vote so please support National Voter Registration Day and the campaign between now and the registration deadline 20 April 2015.
As you may know UCU is campaigning against proposals in the government’s Counter-terrorism and Security Bill which we believe pose a threat to academic freedom and risk undermining the trust between teacher and student in colleges and universities.
On the eve of a crucial debate in the Lords, our legal advice, as reported in today’s Independent, suggests the proposals are also in conflict with existing law, including the Education Act 1986 which places a duty on education institutions to protect free speech.
Please sign this UCU petition calling on the government to withdraw this ill-conceived bill and work with us to retain colleges and universities as open democratic spaces.
It was good to welcome Brandon Wilshaw from Sheffield College today to our well attended General Meeting, and to send support and solidarity to colleagues who will be striking tomorrow.
UCU members at Sheffield College overwhelmingly backed strike action in a row over job losses. 86% of members who voted backed strike action and 95% supported action short of strike. Sheffield College management want to axe 75 jobs now and has warned it is likely to come back looking to make further savings in the near future.
Industrial action starts tomorrow with an all out strike at Sheffield College. Send messages of support and solidarity to brandon.wilshaw@sheffcol.ac
Casualisation in education is a scandal. In HE, 33% of the labour force is on one sort of non-permanent contract or another. Only 51% are on permanent contracts that include both teaching and research. This state of affairs damages the education of our students and puts staff into a situation of poverty and insecurity without basic employment rights. It also harms the opportunities of casualised staff to progress in their careers in line with their counterparts on the national contract. Many of us do—and are expected to—perform a myriad of tasks outside of our contractual obligations, and many are afraid to complain. It is exploitative and we refuse to put up with it.
The FACE conference will take place at SOAS in London on Saturday 7 February 2015, and will include discussions and workshops, as well as speakers from a number of local campaigns around the country.