Loughborough UCU

Tag: Petition

  • Sign the Open Letter in response to change of process regarding Worktribe

    This open letter has been written collaboratively by Lboro UCU Department Reps and Committee Members. Please read the letter then click here to add your signature.

    The University is altering the procedure that staff must follow when applying for research funding, which will mean that researchers planning projects regarded as low value or low complexity will be expected to develop their own costings directly in Worktribe.

    Up to now, much of this work was completed by specialist staff in the Research and Innovation Office (RIO) – staff who have, among other things, expertise in grant management and budget costings, as well as in Worktribe itself.

    These procedural changes have:

    1. Served as partial pretence for the restructuring of RIO, which has led to the loss of four of the Research Development Managers, with institutional experience of more than a combined 100 years, and irreplaceable School and funder-specific knowledge.
    2. Increased the workload associated with grant applications, as academic staff are now expected to complete work that was previously done by staff with relevant expertise in RIO.

    Although the University frames this change as a simplification, the new process is quite clearly more complex and time-consuming for academics, and possibly for RIO staff, than the previous process. It also still requires meetings with RIO staff for any minor complexity in the application.

    As the additional working time required to cover these activities will not be accounted for in WAMs, time spent in Worktribe will either generate additional working hours or reduce time for other work tasks (including working to improve the substantive quality of grant applications).

    Given that the task is outside of the normal skillset and experience of academic staff, it is expected that it will take considerably more time than when carried out by specialist staff – costing the University more money in the process. No equality impact assessment outcomes were shared, so it is unclear how this major change has affected different user groups.

    What is more, we are concerned and saddened that this change appears to have served in part to justify a restructure that was highly stressful for colleagues in RIO – colleagues who have played such an essential role in increasing grant capture and supporting the management of our research projects and are now having to look for work elsewhere.

    The University must reverse course on this policy to avoid further exacerbating workload problems for academic staff and increasing the cost of this work.

    Please add your support to the open letter by clicking here and adding your name.

    Please also share the link with other staff at Loughborough who may wish to sign the open letter.

  • Solidarity with Coventry UCU

    We’re writing to ask for your support for colleagues at Coventry University, who are currently facing a serious and deeply troubling escalation of attacks on job security and sector-wide standards. Coventry UCU has reached out to branches across the country to highlight their situation and to ask for our help in amplifying a national UCU vote of no confidence in their Vice-Chancellor, Professor John Latham CBE.

    You can add your name to the vote here:
    https://speakout.web.ucu.org.uk/vote-of-no-confidence-in-the-vice-chancellor-at-coventry-university/

    Staff at Coventry are presently resisting compulsory redundancies and a sharp acceleration of subsidiarisation, a model that fragments the workforce, bypasses sector agreements, and threatens to hollow out stable, secure academic and professional roles. If allowed to take hold, these practices risk setting precedents that could spread across the UK higher education sector – undermining pay, conditions, and governance far beyond Coventry alone.

    This vote of no confidence is an important opportunity for members across UCU to demonstrate that we reject these damaging approaches to university management. A strong response from branches nationwide will help send a clear signal that such governance failures are unacceptable and that the sector will not stand by while staff protections are dismantled.

    We encourage all Lboro UCU members to take a moment to add your name to the vote and to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with colleagues at Coventry. Their fight is not only about the future of their institution – it has implications for all of us.

    Please add your name if you can, and share the link with colleagues who may also wish to support.

  • LUCU News: Pensions Update

    Today is April Fools’ Day. It’s also the day when Universities UK’s cuts to USS come into effect. What’s happening to our pension scheme is as ludicrous as the great April Fools’ pranks of the past (spaghetti trees, the island of San Serif), but, unfortunately, not as funny.

    As a result of these cuts, the pension you will earn today is between 15% and 35% lower than the pension you earned yesterday. Coupled with the 21/22 pay award of just 1.5% and an inflation rate currently running at 6.2%, the assault on our pensions means that this year will see the biggest cut in our real-terms renumeration since at least the 1970s – potentially the biggest cut ever.

    The changes taking effect in USS from today have other implications, too. From now on, the University will be spending around £5.8m per year on servicing the ‘deficit’ that USS calculated existed on 31 March 2020, at the height of the pandemic. In the Trustees’ interim monitoring report of 28 February 2022, USS accepted that this ‘deficit’ had shrunk from £14.1bn to £2.0bn. Remarkably, to create even this trivially small £2.0bn ‘deficit’, USS had to lower its growth assumptions below even the ‘excessively prudent’ assumptions used in the 2020 valuation: USS is now assuming 0% growth in real terms (since 2020 it has achieved 33% growth).

    You may need to take a moment for this outrage to sink in. This £5.8m per year is real money, taken from the University’s bank account. So, the next time you are told there is no money to fund your PhD student to attend a conference, no money to replace your faulty computer, or no money to buy a new heater for your cold office, please remember that there is enough money in the University to spend £5.8m servicing a deficit that doesn’t exist.

    What now?

    There are two immediate ways in which the dispute could be resolved.

    First, USS is being taken to court by a group of UCU activists. The hearing is scheduled for 5 April, and you can find out details of the case at the CrowdJustice page.

    Second, Universities UK could insist that USS issues a new deficit recovery plan in light of post-valuation experience. Because the current ‘deficit’ is so low, this would be likely to reduce deficit recovery payments to zero, thereby providing scope for devising a new schedule of contributions and higher benefits. Critically, to improve benefits does not require the same lengthy consultation and legal process as is needed when benefits are cut.

    To date, Universities UK has refused to call for a new valuation, or for post-valuation experience to be taken into account in drawing up the deficit recovery plan; instead, it has preferred simply to cut staff benefits. Without concerted pressure from UCU members, in the form of a high turnout and a strong ‘yes’ vote in the current ballot for continuing industrial action, UUK will continue to erode our living standards.

    Sign the petition

    Please urgently join UCU’s call for Universities UK (UUK) to revoke the cuts by signing the petition here: https://speakout.web.ucu.org.uk/uss-cuts-are-not-necessary/

    Please vote

    The ballot closes a week today: 8 April. We urge you to return your ballot papers, if you have not already done so. The last safe day to post is Wednesday 6 April. Thank you.

    LUCU Committee

  • Petition on the closure of Newcastle University’s London campus

    Please sign the petition on the closure of Newcastle University‘s London campus
    Members are asked to sign and share the petition which can be found here. Newcastle University’s London campus is set to close on 31st September 2021, and staff face the prospective of either a move to Newcastle or redundancy.