Tag: News

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Leicester & District Trades Union Council Events

Leicester & District Trades Union Council Events

Your Rights, The Law, and Empowerment Event

Unite Community Leicester has organised an event “Your Rights, The Law, and Empowerment” on Sunday 19th January 2025 from 11am – 4pm. Everyone is welcome to join them at: Secular Hall, 75 Humberstone Gate, Leicester (LE1 1WB).

Lawyers will give three presentations to update you on laws around protest and strike action, with each focusing on one of the following topics: “Unions”, “Palestine” and “Climate & Ecological Emergency”. The event is supported by Leicester & District Trades Union Council (L&DTUC). For more information, please see this flyer.

Organising the next Workers Memorial Day

The Health, Safety and Welfare (HSW) subcommittee of Leicester & District Trades Union Council (L&DTUC) will meet to start organising the next Workers Memorial Day event. The meeting will be on Tuesday 21st January 2025 starting at 6pm and, it’s hoped, will not last much more than an hour. All trade unionists are welcome. You do not need to be a trades council delegate to get involved. The organising meeting will be held on Zoom. If you’re interested in contributing, please use this link to join the meeting.

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Annual Meeting for Members on Casualised Contracts

Annual Meeting for Members on Casualised Contracts

The UCU national annual meeting for members on casualised contracts will be held on Saturday 22nd February and will be in hybrid format, both on-line and in London. The meeting is an opportunity to network, to find out what the Anti-Casualisation committee (ACC) have been doing over the past 12 months, to elect members to the committee and, to debate motions.

The exact content of the meeting is still being finalised, but the intention is to have a panel discussion on how the union progresses its anti-casualisation work and workshops on the new Employment Rights bill, the launch of the Researcher manifesto and anti-casualisation and equality.

For full details on how to register, how to send motions and how to make nominations to the ACC will be available shortly, here.

UCU are encouraging members on casualised contracts to consider attending the event, raising motions for the meeting and to consider putting yourself forward to join the anti-casualisation committee as there are lots of places available this year. For more information please contact Jane Thompson here.

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New Reps in ONCampus & London and Appointment of Branch Membership Secretary

New Reps in ONCampus & London and Appointment of Branch Membership Secretary

We are very pleased to announce that we now have two department reps in Lboro London. Matt Vidal has stepped back into the role following a short break and will work alongside our new London Rep, Anaïs Carlton-Parada. We are also delighted to announce we now have a department rep in Lboro ONCampus where Pedro Nunes has recently taken on the role. We know all three of these reps will do a great job representing members in London and ONCampus.

In addition to our new reps, we also are also very happy to announce that Eleanor Roberts, who joined the branch committee in the summer as an ordinary member, has been appointed as the branch Membership Secretary. Eleanor will take a lead in the important areas of recruitment and organising in the branch.

Anaïs Carlton-Parada, LUCU Rep for Loughborough London.

“I’m Dr Anaïs Carlton-Parada and I’ve been a researcher and teaching fellow at Loughborough University London for four years in the Institute for Creative Futures. Prior to working at Loughborough, I was a graduate student at the University of South Carolina, U.S., in Anthropology. This is my first union role, although I have been involved in union actions since my start at Loughborough. My research and personal interests align through actionable care and moving toward equity in significant, tangible ways, so I’m looking forward to supporting as a rep and being a first point of contact for our union members.”

Matt Vidal, LUCU Rep for Loughborough London.

“I joined Loughborough London in 2017 as Reader in Sociology and Political Economy. I was deeply involved in union activism during my PhD programme at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where I was an Organizing Committee and Executive Board member, Teaching Assistants’ Association, AFT #3220. I took some years off from formal union activism work after I got my first academic job at King’s College London, though was always active in following and supporting UCU and all other unions. I first started as department rep at Loughborough London in 2022.”

Pedro Nunes, LUCU Rep for ONCampus.

“I joined UCU during my time as an FE teacher, after coming into contact with the “Respect FE” campaign. Around a year and a half ago, I was employed by ONCampus at Loughborough University, right after the opening of the new pre-programme centre for international students. Previously, I took precarious teaching positions both at Durham and Leicester Universities. These experiences gave me insights into some of the most pernicious dynamics currently affecting the sector, and how unions are one of the main drivers of positive change. Consequently, it is fundamental for unions to stand by policies that empower our members and strengthen our collective voice.”

We currently have vacancies for Reps in Computer Science, Lboro Sport, Chemistry, Student Services, Lboro Law & Wolfson. Interested members from those areas are encouraged to get in touch with our Branch Organiser, Callum Salfield, for more information or a chat about the role.

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LUCU Equality Report: 2024 UCU Equality Conference and Local Developments 

LUCU Equality Report: 2024 UCU Equality Conference and Local Developments 

LUCU Equality Officer (EO), Dr Angela Martinez Dy, recently attended the 2024 UCU Equality Groups Conference at Aston University in Birmingham. This annual event comprises five conferences over three days, serving disabled members, Black members, migrant members, women members, and LGBTQ+ members.  

Angela participated in the migrant and women’s conferences in person, whilst attending some of the Black members’ and LGBTQ+ conference online. All were offered in hybrid format. She did not attend the disabled members’ conference as she does not identify as a member of the group. 

Overall, this valuable space enables members from these groups to openly raise and discuss important issues relevant to them and thus to the Union as a whole. We encourage LUCU members from any of these groups to consider attending. UCU National reimburses reasonable expenses for attendance. 

Migrant Members’ Conference 

The Migrant Members’ committee is the most recently established of the equality groups. At this conference, several crucial issues were discussed, including:  

  • the challenges of transitioning from biometric residence permits (BRP) to e-visas 
  • inviting speakers from the Global South to UCU Congress 2025 
  • UCU’s ongoing lobbying against the immigration health surcharge, which the union argues constitutes double taxation alongside National Insurance contributions 
  • HMRC’s classification of university-reimbursed visa fees as workplace benefits. 

A panel featuring solicitor Kemi Obayelu, Dr Kamran Khan, and Dr Paul John Alegado provided valuable insights into migrant perception and contributions to UK society, challenging narratives that frame migrants as security threats and societal burdens. 

Women’s Conference 

Intersectionality formed the central theme of the women’s conference, featuring keynote speakers including UCU President Maxine Looby, Dr Jenny Douglas, Dr Amelia Baldwin, and Dr Victoria Showunmi. Vibrant discussion and debate following these presentations, exploring both the importance of intersectionality (and avoiding its dilution and depoliticisation) and ways to continue to address women’s marginality within interlocking structures of oppression. 

Black Members’ Conference 

The conference opened with a focused discussion on the ongoing review of racism within UCU itself, with President Maxine Looby sharing her experiences and initiatives as a Black woman resisting racism within the Executive. This was followed by an impactful workshop on challenging workplace racism, led by Nitin Rajyaguru and Saleem Rashid. 

LGBTQ+ Members’ Conference 

Angela attended portions of this conference remotely, noting particularly engaging presentations from Muwonge Gerald, Lexi Breen, and Harun Tulunay, who highlighted the continued risks to LGBTQ+ safety and the need to better incorporate international LGBTQ+ experiences into our understandings of inequality. 

Local Developments 

Following a handover from Kerry Featherstone in October 2024, Angela has stepped into her role as EO with great enthusiasm. A former leader of the BAME (now REACH) staff network, EDI Advisory Forum initiator and co-chair, and Strategic Architect of the LU Race Equity Strategy, as LUCU EO Angela is now part of the University’s EDI Board and contributing to the implementation of the newly approved EDI Core Plan. Key developments from the latest Board meeting include: 

  • Recruitment planning for new associate directors’ EDI roles 
  • Collaborating with Organisational Development to enhance reasonable adjustments processes 
  • Promoting the uptake and use of equality impact assessments (EIAs) across the University 

Angela has also conducted a thorough demographic analysis (descriptive statistics only) of LUCU’s membership as of Oct 2024, looking at age, race, gender, disability, sexual orientation, and contract type/status data, as well as some relevant intersections. Although numbers are very small in places, patterns locally mirror expectations based on national trends. For example, local membership data suggest that higher percentages of women and BAME people hold fixed-term contracts (50% women, 11.3% BAME) as compared to permanent contracts (42% women, 5.8% BAME), and that a large majority of our members on part-time contracts are women (78%).  

Following her analysis of these data and her attendance at the Equality Groups Conference, Angela will work with LUCU Branch Organiser Callum Salfield to conduct a series of online focus groups with LUCU Members to better understand their needs and priorities. The proposed groups include: Migrant, Black/BAME, Women and Gender Non-Conforming, LGBTQ+, Disabled, and Early Career members. If you have feedback on these plans or are interested in participating, please message Callum with the groups you wish to be included in, and/or keep an eye out in emails and future newsletters for upcoming polls for dates and times. Members are welcome to attend more than one if multiple categories apply.  

Finally, we would like members to note that last year, our committee raised a motion calling for UCU to change the “Equality Officer” title to “Equity Officer” in line with changing terminology at Loughborough. It became clear that that the process to amend the terminology was too complex and time-consuming to be worthwhile, so we decided instead to focus on progressing work directly addressing the many equity and equality related issues instead. 

Please message Angela to discuss this update or any equality or equity related issues. 

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Week of Action on Palestinian Right to Education

Week of Action on Palestinian Right to Education

In response to Birzeit University’s call for academics, activists, unions and solidarity groups to participate in the “Right to Education” Week of Action (November 23-30). Loughborough UCU (LUCU) organised an awareness-raising event amplifying the theme of “United Against Scholasticide”, highlighting Israel’s systematic destruction of Gaza’s higher education infrastructure and community.

On November 28th, colleagues and doctoral researcher members of LUCU based on the London campus hosted a stall from 10AM-4PM. Printed resources from Scholars Against the War on Palestine (SWAP), including its useful toolkit, were made available, alongside flyers from other solidarity organisations. These set out the definition of scholasticide and the devastating statistics regarding affected educational institutions, educators and students. LUCU’s new Palestinian Solidarity Working Group, formed in response to a successful member-raised motion to support Loughborough Action for Palestine Coalition, also created and distributed a leaflet in printed and digital versions, highlighting British universities’ potential complicity in the genocide through collaborative research and development partnerships with organisations enabling Israel’s occupation, colonialism and apartheid.

At the time of writing (2/12/2024), SWAP’s tracker for scholasticide notes the following:

  • All 11 Gazan universities have been bombed
  • 5,213 students have been murdered
  • 90,000 university students cannot attend university
  • 8,691 students have been injured.
  • 370 schools have been damaged or destroyed, leaving more than 620,000 students out of schools
  • At least 239 educators have been killed
  • 60% of bookshops and libraries have been destroyed

The stall and stallholders were met with an overall curious and positive reception from both staff and students. On the same day, Loughborough Action for Palestine Coalition endorsed and attended a rally hosted by other university coalitions and solidarity groups to protest the University of London’s injunction to criminalise protests in support of the Boycott Divest and Sanctions movement on campus.

Dr Angela Martinez Dy, LUCU Equality Officer, commented: “The ongoing destruction by Israel’s military of Palestinian knowledge, evident in the targeting of educators and students in the ongoing war, is a concern for academia globally. It’s great to see LUCU members responding to Palestinian scholars’ leadership, drawing attention and raising awareness about scholasticide amongst the Loughborough Uni community, and encouraging people to take action.”

Please consider signing the petition here, and contact LUCU Equality Officer Angela Martinez Dy to join the working group and progress future actions.

Thanks go to Iman Khan and the LUCU Palestinian Solidarity Working Group for writing this update.

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Decarbonise & Decolonise CPD Training (Rescheduled)

Decarbonise & Decolonise CPD Training (Rescheduled)

Lboro UCU branch has re-organised the CPD workshop, open to all LU staff, which will introduce participants to the interconnectivity of the Decarbonise and Decolonise agendas and identify opportunities to take action. Masters and PhD students at LU are also welcome to attend the session.

The CPD course will now take place online on 5th February from 12:30 – 2pm. Please come along and invite your colleagues (including those who may not be UCU members) to join us. This can be used as evidence of training, and some staff might also find the workshop helpful for feeding into their PDR EDI Performance Objectives.

The workshop will give an overview of climate justice, and how this links to the concepts of ‘decolonising’ and ‘decarbonising’ as the structural and systemic roots of the human-induced climate crisis. We will explore examples of climate injustice, and how this often intersects with issues like race, gender, class and indigeneity.

We will also look at examples of when sustainability actions and initiatives have not taken an intersectional approach, with discussions on how we can avoid this in education to create sustainability activities that recognise and work to challenge the harmful legacies of colonialism and imperialism.

The full aims of the interactive workshop are to:

  • provide an introductory understanding of climate justice and its connection with decolonising and decarbonising
  • support participants to identify opportunities to apply decolonising and decarbonising for climate justice to the education sector
  • encourage participants to develop their own practice to consider climate justice and intersectionality
  • explore the role of UCU branches and members in mobilising action for decolonising and decarbonising.

Sign up to the training here and please share this link with any other staff at Lboro who may be interested in coming along – https://cpd.web.ucu.org.uk/events/ucu-decarbonise-and-decolonise-loughborough-2/

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LU Staff Experience Survey

LU Staff Experience Survey

The LUCU Committee would like to encourage members to complete the Staff Experience Survey.

Although there can be some scepticism about staff satisfaction surveys, the University views the survey as a key means for taking a staff “temperature check”.

We are therefore keen to ensure that a representative set of experiences and views are reflected in the survey. The higher the response rate, the more meaningful the results will be and the easier it will be for us to lobby management on the issues raised. We therefore also encourage you to respond as honestly as you feel able to, without identifying specific issues that are personal to you. Using the free text sections is a good way to highlight concerns that aren’t covered elsewhere.

If you haven’t yet filled in the survey, you should be receiving reminder emails from People Insight that include your personal link. Responses are anonymised by People Insight before results are fed back to the University and your School or Service.

The survey takes approximately 5-10 minutes to complete and closes on the 15th of December.

LUCU Committee

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A New Rep Joins the Team

A New Rep Joins the Team

We are very pleased to announce that a new department rep has been added to the branch team. In the School of Social Sciences and Humanities Amy Cortvriend has recently taken over the role of department rep for Criminology, Sociology and Social Policy. Many thanks go to Nathan Ritchie for his work in the role over the last few years. We know Amy will do a great job representing members in CSSP.

Amy Cortvriend, LUCU Rep for Criminology, Sociology and Social Policy, School of Social Sciences and Humanities.

“I’m Amy Cortvriend and I joined Loughborough as Lecturer in Criminology just over a year ago. I moved from another university where I was the migrant members representative on the branch committee so already have some union experience and am looking forward to supporting our members again.“

We currently have vacancies for Reps in London, Computer Science, Lboro Sport, Chemistry, Student Services, OnCampus & Wolfson. Interested members from those areas are encouraged to get in touch with our Branch Organiser, Callum Salfield, for more information or a chat about the role.

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EDI Project Funding Available

EDI Project Funding Available

We would like to make members aware that EDI Services have a pot of funding available for individual EDI-related projects. This is a great way to resource local EDI initiatives in Schools and Professional Services. Applications for the next round of funding close on 15th January. Please see this website for more details and examples of successfully funded projects.

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Approaching retirement? Become a Retired Member

Approaching retirement? Become a Retired Member

If you are coming up to retirement, we recommend that you consider remaining a member of UCU and either join the UCU East Midlands Retired Members Branch or switch to a retired membership whilst remaining in the LUCU branch, whichever you prefer. Retired members are entitled to most of the same benefits as other members. Retired membership is the same price in both LUCU and the EM Retired Members branch: £3.08 per month, including 5p for the political fund.

Please see this page on our website for information on the East Midlands Retired Members branch and information on how to change your membership and subscription.