Loughborough UCU

Tag: News

  • 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. 

  • 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.

  • 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/

  • 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

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • eVisa and Immigration Status

    The UK government is replacing physical documents with an online system for immigration status, also known as an eVisa. If you currently have a biometric residence permit (BRP) for a visa or ILR, an EEA or EUSS biometric residence card (BRC), or an endorsement stamp or visa sticker in your passport, you need to replace this physical document by the end of December 2024 with an eVisa. An eVisa is an online record of your immigration status and the conditions of your permission to enter or stay in the UK. You will no longer be able to use your physical documents to return to the UK or prove your immigration status within the UK from 1 January 2025 onwards. You will need to create a UKVI account to be able to access your eVisa. There is information on how to do this here.

    eVisa Webinar

    Bindmans solicitors are holding a webinar on Monday 18th November (1-2pm) which will give you an overview of the UK government’s planned transition from physical biometric permits, including Indefinite Leave to Remain, EU settlement scheme and all types of visa to an electronic format. You can register for this event here. UCU are collecting any questions members might have for the immigration lawyers relating to the e-Visa scheme/process. Please submit your questions to the UCU equalities team before 13th November.

  • Decarbonise & Decolonise CPD Training

    Lboro UCU branch has organised a 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.

    The CPD course will take place online on 11th December 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/

  • Unions win an extra Christmas closure day for 2024

    UCU, along with Unite and UNISON requested in July that the University close for the 23rd of December, rather than colleagues returning for one day between the weekend and the Christmas break, giving us a significantly longer continuous break.  The request did not initially get a warm reception, but we were subsequently told it would be looked on favourably if sufficient progress was made on a number of policy changes the University wanted to make.  Union reps have therefore been working hard to progress these matters, while of course being diligent about ensuring the best outcome for members.  The Vice Chancellor agreed to our request in October.  We hope everyone enjoys their extended break.