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Researcher bridging funds and pools

Some faculties now have bridging funds and researcher pools to improve job security for researchers.  For example, Engineering now has bridging funds available which any PI can apply for to secure researchers between projects.  SUCU continues to campaign for more of these positive steps towards decasualisaton.  We’d like to know more details of what is available in every faculty — you can help by emailing ucu@sheffield.ac.uk with a quick report of what’s available in your own faculty and experiences you have had with them.

USS pension dispute update

This is a detailed and comprehensive update for members covering the items listed.  Please do read on.

  • Student Support.
  • 25% punitive deductions – alternative strategy of calling all members to strike action
  • UCU proposal
  • Why we must win this
  • Response to questions
  • Hardship payments
  • Liverpool UCU strike action
  • USS meetings in Departments

Student Support

University of Sheffield Student Union have passed a policy supporting the marking boycott and any strike action we decide to take and calling on the University to publicly put forward a view on changes to USS.  Full text of motion.  And student representatives from students’ unions from across the UK, including national NUS and NUS Scotland officers, have written to the Independent laying the blame for the current action firmly on university managements and Universities UK.  Read more..
25% punitive deductions – alternative strategy of calling all members to strike action
HR have updated their advice and are deducting 25% of pay from the day your assessment/marking activity is due to start and for every day until the marking is complete, ie presumably until the end of the dispute.  SUCU Committee are aware that these punitive deductions by the University management have a very uneven impact on our members and throw up many anomalies.  SUCU Committee will be proposing an alternative strategy of instead all members taking strike action proportional to the pay docking, eg two days a fortnight.  The strategy would would need the sanction of the national HE Committee.  A motion to this effect will be proposed at the next General Meeting 27th Nov 1-2pm in the Council Chamber, Octagon Centre.  We need a good turn out for this branch meeting.  The proposed motion will be circulated shortly.
 
UCU Proposal to the Employers

Last week many of you attended the EGM to discuss the dispute, boycott strategies, and an update from the special USS meeting the day before.  Members were advised of UCU’s proposal, since put to the employers. Great concern was voiced across the room.  The following motion was agreed at the meeting and sent to our national negotiators.

 
Motion from University of Sheffield UCU EGM 5 November 2014:
 
This meeting is deeply concerned at the proposals discussed at the national USS meeting yesterday, which are to be put to the employers very shortly:
  • We believe UCU is conceding far too much too early. This is a dangerous opening gambit.
  • Our proposals should be on the basis of a realistic funding valuation, not the over prudent valuation which is disputed by UCU and some employers.
  • The proposals should also be on the basis of what was voted on in the ballot. Putting forward proposals on the basis of the flawed valuation goes against the whole direction and tenor of the previous emails and publicity from HQ.
  • The employers are breaking ranks in public, and in UCU there was an excellent ballot turnout and ballot result. We should make use of our strong position, not immediately make huge concessions.
We strongly urge our negotiators not to put forward to the employers proposals like those discussed on 4 November based on the flawed funding valuation.
 
Passed nem con
 

UCU negotiators met the Employers last Friday and are due to meet again tomorrow.  We will send you updates as we hear them.


Why we must win this

The UCU proposal is still vastly superior to the Employers position. If the Employers get away with introducing a Trojan horse ‘Defined Contribution’ element into USS then they would undoubtedly soon try to extend this (as they have with CARE) and we could end up with a scheme with no guaranteed benefits at all.  This MUST be stopped. 

Remember:

  • The employers can afford it – pre92 institutions are doing very well.
  • The deficit is entirely artificial. Part comes from inappropriate legislation and part from deliberate ‘over-prudence’ by the Trustees and Employers (though some are breaking ranks).

SUCU Committee will be proposing an alternative strategy of calling all members to strike action but in the mean time we must hold firm our position and maintain the assessment and marking boycott. 

 
Response to questions
A number of anomalies have been thrown up as a result of the University’s 25% pay docking and members have been sending questions – not specifically covered by the UCU FAQs.  One common question is that if we are being docked 25% should we only work 75%?  The answer we have just received from HQ is No – only assessment work can be boycotted as that is the action that has been declared.
We would like to thank members for their questions and for their patience.
 
Hardship payments
The national strike fund will be available to members after three full days loss of pay, or equivalent where members docked less than 100 per cent (and pro rata for part timers) and for those who can show disproportionate hardship before that point. Members will receive up to a net £75 a day based on their actual loss. See the FAQs. HQ say the online form for this will be ready shortly.If this still leaves you with problems, SUCU Committee is conscious that some members, especially postgraduate students or those who are hourly paid (bank workers) will experience financial difficulty resulting from loss of income before that point.  SUCU is able to offer support to members who experience hardship as a result of taking industrial action by contacting Jane Rodger, Branch Administrator, email ucu@sheffield.ac.uk. PLEASE PUT THE WORDS “SUCU HARDSHIP APPLICATION” IN THE SUBJECT FIELD and provide some information about why you would be subject to hardship if you lose income as a result of the action. All contact will be completely confidential.

SOAS break ranks
SOAS is the latest employer to break ranks.  They are making no pay deductions and are pressing UUK (the employer body) to review their strategy.  Why is Sheffield University not doing the same?
 
Liverpool UCU vote for strike action

Liverpool is one of a number of University managements to make the aggressive announcement that it will dock 100% pay for partial performance in the assessment boycott Liverpool UCU has voted to go on strike until this threat is lifted.  They have also called on the national union to act on our ballot mandate for a national strike.

Members at Liverpool will be now meeting on each Monday and we would like to be able to read out as many messages and pledges as possible at the next meeting. Members at Liverpool need to see support coming in from around the country. Send messages of support to: lucu@liverpool.ac.uk.

 

USS meetings in Departments

Many members have held and are organising workplace meetings in their Departments to discuss the boycott and dispute and we would encourage this across all Departments.  If possible a SUCU Committee member will attend. Please note there will be a meeting for members in the Faculty of Arts and Humanities next Tues 18 Nov 1-2pm in the Jessop West Exhibition Space.

 

More resources:

University of Sheffield Student Union supports our boycott

University of Sheffield Student Union have passed a policy supporting the marking boycott and any strike action we decide to take and calling on the University to publicly put forward a view on changes to USS.

Motion to SUSU Council: Support the Marking Boycott

Council Notes:

  • That the marking boycott called by UCU beginning 6th November is a legitimate response to yet another attack on the terms and conditions of employment for academic and academic-related workers in the pre-92 Universities; specifically changes to the USS pension scheme which will leave many staff thousands of pounds worse off in retirement and which will see staff in pre-92 institutions receive lower pensions than staff in post-92 institutions who currently are enrolled in the TPS scheme.
  • That four pre-92 institutions have already voiced criticisms of the proposed changes; namely Oxford, Cambridge, Essex and Warwick.
  • That Postgraduate students who teach will be taking part in this boycott and have already been subject to pressure not to do so in some departments of the University.
  • That UCU as a union has an excellent record in supporting students fighting against cuts to education over the last five years.

Council Resolves:

  • To declare its support for UCU members in struggle and write to Sheffield UCU to offer solidarity and support.
  • To make every effort to communicate with students explaining why staff have been forced to take this drastic action and how it will affect them.
  • To organise events which will allow local UCU representatives to communicate with students and put their case for action to them, perhaps in the same manner as the excellent ‘Strike Café’ last year.
  • To demand that the University of Sheffield make public its own position on the changes to USS.
  • To pledge to support any strike action which UCU deem necessary to undertake in the course of this dispute.
  • To pledge to support any Postgraduate student who suffers victimisation or intimidation as a result of taking part in the marking boycott.
And student representatives from students’ unions from across the UK, including national NUS and NUS Scotland officers, have written to the Independent laying the blame for the current action firmly on university managements and Universities UK.  Read more..

 

Student anger directed at UUK

Student representatives from students’ unions from across the UK, including national NUS and NUS Scotland officers, have today written to the Independent laying the blame for the current action firmly on university managements and Universities UK.

The National Union of Students has also issued a briefing paper which reiterates its standing policy to support industrial action by UCU and which says ‘we now urgently need to see both sides getting round the table and negotiating a fair and sustainable agreement’.

Letter as published on the Independent’s website:

From today, academic staff at 69 UK higher education institutions are set to begin a marking boycott; the next step in ongoing industrial action by the University and College Union. The proposed changes to pensions that have led to this action will cost university staff thousands of pounds a year in lost benefits and create inequality between institutions.

Since 2009, average academic pay has fallen by 14.5 per cent, while vice-chancellor salaries increased by 5.1 per cent in the past year alone. The average gender pay gap in higher education is 17 per cent, and 53 per cent of universities employ staff on zero-hours contracts.

Students are angry that this boycott is happening. But our anger is aimed squarely at university managements and Universities UK, who oversee lucrative salary increases for vice-chancellors while leaving staff out in the cold.

Any draconian response from universities – such as the legally dubious threat of withdrawing the full salary for those partaking in a boycott – will be met with discontent from students and staff, who are united on this issue.

Yet more criticism of UUK’s plans

The University of Aberdeen has joined a growing list of UK universities to criticise damaging plans put forward by the employers’ organisation, Universities UK, to change the pension scheme for academic and related staff at nine Scottish universities.

In a letter from the university to UCU a key proposal put forward by the employers is not backed because the university states that they haven’t seen ‘sufficient evidence’ to justify the damaging change. Specifically, the university said it hasn’t seen grounds to allow it to support the proposal to introduce a limit to a defined contribution scheme and that even if a limit were to be introduced it should be above what is being proposed.

The letter also indicates that, in their view, there may be scope to make efficiencies within the operational costs and overheads of the pension scheme rather than all difficult choices with regard to the scheme’s deficit falling on staff. Additionally, in the letter’s final paragraphs the university concludes that their own view ‘correlates to a significant extent’ with that of the union.

Read the UCU Scotland’s press release here