LUCU News – March 2023

We would like to thank Reps and members for their tremendous support for the action so far: our success is driven by your creativity, time, and energy!

An additional day of action has been called by the HEC for 15^th March in order to increase pressure on the employers during the ongoing talks. Upcoming strike dates, pickets and teach-outs as below:

Strike action date	Pickets	Teach-Outs
Wednesday 15 March	No picket	11am-12pm: Organising and Power – Rose Pesotta
Thursday 16 March	Lboro Picket: 8:30 – 10:30 Main Gate	11am -12pm: Memories of anti-racism
Friday 17 March	No picket	2pm-3:30pm: Organising for Power Workshop
Monday 20 March	Lboro Picket: 8:30 – 10:30 Main Gate	11am-12pm: Starting conversations about race and racism
Tuesday 21 March	No picket
Wednesday 22 March	No picket

Teach-Out Details: Please advertise the three of these events that are open to all students and colleagues.

The “Organising and Power” teach-out will be held online. Ruth Kinna will give a talk about Rose Pesotta (1896–1965), anarchist, feminist and labour organizer in the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union: Teams link

The “Memories of anti-racism” teach-out is hybrid. Emily Keightley will introduce the Migrant Memory and Postcolonial Imagination exhibition at: Charnwood Arts (27 Rectory Pl, Loughborough LE11 1UW) and will talk about histories and memories of anti-racist protest and experiences of racism in Loughborough and East London. All are welcome to attend in person or via Teams link.

The “Organising for Power Workshop” will be held online. Alexandre Christoyannopoulos will lead the workshop introducing methods from the Organizing for Power training that some members attended last year, with time for discussion about how they could work within Loughborough UCU. This workshop is for LUCU members only, and you can attend via Teams link.

The “Starting conversations about race and racism” teach-out is hybrid. Denise Coles and Amanda Harrington will talk about how to start conversations about race and racism, with fellow workers and students, in meetings, corridors, formally and in informal exchanges. All are welcome to attend in person at: The Council Chambers, Loughborough Students Union, or via Zoom Link.

ASOS: We would also like to remind members that ASOS is ongoing.

GTVO

It is vital that the union returns a Yes vote to further action to give our negotiators the necessary mandate and leverage to succeed in discussions with UUK and UCEA. Your ballot must be received by 31 March, and the last safe posting date is 28 March. If you have not received a ballot, please contact UCU directly: replacement ballot request form.

Campaign Resources

Thanks to Saul Albert and Anthony Kevins we have some inspiring videos that showcase student support for our action. Please support UCU Rising by circulating these videos via your social media. We are very grateful to Saul and Anthony for creating these valuable resources. To see the videos on our various platforms please click the links: YouTube, Facebook, TikTok, Instagram and Twitter.

Local Strike Fund

We would like to acknowledge grateful receipt of a £100 donation from Leicester Workers Support Group, which will allow us to make another donation to the UCU Fighting Fund, directly benefitting our members in the coming months.

Local Negotiations

EDI: We are pleased to report that there will be direct union involvement on the new University EDI Operations Committee, led by the new PVC-EDI Charlotte Croffie. This recognises union members as a key stakeholder constituency, and our participation in the work of the committee will enable us to inform the direction and implementation of EDI initiatives. As this is not a space for negotiation, the three campus trade unions will rotate sending a delegate to serve for one year. There will be regular meetings with Unite and Unison to consolidate the unions’ perspective.

LUCU is currently in the process of expanding our representation on LUCU committee by seeking multiple equality officers. Our aim is to maximise our engagement with relevant university EDI projects and working groups and to prioritise aspects of EDI in line with national campaigns. We have expressions of interest from two members to stand for the following officer roles: Disability; Women & LGBTQ+. We are keen to hear from other members who may wish to join committee and lead on BAME. We would like to assure members that we recognise the importance of an intersectional approach to EDI, and we envision our EDI officers and other committee members working together to ensure our approach to EDI is aligned with best practice.

REF: LUCU will also continue to have a voice on the REF Code of Practice Working Group, which is chaired by the PVC for Research and Innovation. The group works to ensure the fair and transparent identification of staff and selection of outputs for REF. We ask that members feedback any issues of concern about the REF process in their schools so that they can be raised either at a working group meeting or ARSNC.

Professor Dan Parsons, PVC – Research and Innovation, attended ARSNC to discuss items we had put forward for discussion following concerns raised by our members about the internal review of REF outputs at school level, as well as grant capture and EDI. It was agreed that schools should ensure they approach the review with parity and transparency in mind; the process should be developmental in focus, and internal scores will not be used as a measure of performance during PDRs. The University also recognises the inherent biases in the grant process in terms of applicants with protected characteristics, and the PCV was keen to ensure that the University aims to mitigate as much as possible these external factors when, for example, considering applications for university fellowships and promotion.

Restructures: We have been in consultations with management about restructures in IT Services, the Research and Innovation Office, and the School of Aeronautical and Automotive Engineering. We can report that no redundancies are planned, and where individual members have requested it, a caseworker has been assigned for support.

WAMS and Workload: Members have raised concerns about the timing of workload allocation, which, in some schools, has come too late for efficient planning of teaching and research. Steve Harris, Change Portfolio Manager & Process Improvement Lead, has agreed to review WAMS to explore how workload allocation can be managed in a timelier manner.

LUCU Committee

20th February 202320th February 2023

UCU Rising Campaign Update

Pause in Strike Action

As you have probably already heard, due to the pressure created through your collective action and presence on picket lines, UCU have announced significant progress in negotiations with the employers in our HE pay and pension disputes. To allow ongoing negotiations to continue in a constructive environment UCU has agreed to pause strike action for the next two weeks. This means our scheduled pickets on the 22^nd February and 1^st March are suspended, as is all strike action until we recommence the pressure with our picket on the 16^th March. For this period, during the pause in strike action, ASOS remains in place and the branch will focus on the re-ballot. We are looking to reschedule teach-outs which were planned for the 22^nd Feb and the 1^st March, and will update you with more details on these when we have finalised the new plans. The planned Creative Writing Social/Teach-out on the 28^th February will still be taking place as it is outside of normal working hours.

Take a look at some of the creative works our members have produced with students in support of the dispute, on our YouTube channel.

Re-ballot

It is now more important than ever that we deliver a massive yes vote in our upcoming re-ballot of members for both our pay and conditions, and USS disputes. This will allow our negotiators to keep the pressure on and will leave the option for a Marking and Assessment Boycott and/or further strike action if the dispute is not resolved. Ballot papers will start arriving from Wednesday 22^nd February. Please complete and return your ballot, and encourage others to do the same.

We’d really appreciate help with the get the vote out effort. If you volunteer you will be given a list of names and will be asked to call members on their list encouraging them to vote. Please let the branch know if you can help by responding to this email.

UCU will be hosting our union’s biggest ever UCU Live event on the eve of ballots dropping. Please join our general secretary Jo Grady at 19:30 on Tuesday 21^st February on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter.

LUCU Committee

17th February 202317th February 2023

Picket in Loughborough on Wednesday – 22nd Feb

Next Week’s Picket

For next week the branch has organised a picket on Lboro campus taking place on Wednesday 22^nd February. The picket will be at the Holywell Gate on Holywell Way (exact location) from 11:30am to 2pm. It will be followed by “Unions and the Media” an online teach-out from 2:30-5pm (Teams link). See the section on teach-outs at the end of this article for full details.

As always, we hope to see as many of you on the picket as possible. The longer the picket line, the shorter the dispute.

Future Picket Dates, Times & Locations

Strike Day	Picket Time	Picket Location
Wed 1st March	11:30-14:00	Holywell Gate
Thurs 16th March	8:30-10:30	Main Gate
Mon 20th March	8:30-10:30	Main Gate

Future London picket details will be communicated as and when they are arranged.

Although we are only picketing on the above dates, please remember that the following dates are also strike days.

February: Tues 21^st, Thurs 23^rd, Mon 27^th& Tues 28^th.

March: Thurs 2^nd, Fri 17^th, Tues 21^st & Wed 22^nd.

Resources for Staff

Please regularly check our website for updated versions of strike resources for staff such as out of office messages, email templates you can send to students or use on learn and slides for students.

Teach-Outs Updates

We’re delighted to announce a fourth teach-out on our schedule:

Mightier than the Sword? – a creative writing social at The Organ Grinder (4 Woodgate, Loughborough, LE11 2TY) on Tuesday February 28^th, 6-8pm. Upstairs in The Hayloft, Barbara Cooke and Kerry Featherstone will be serving up creative exercises that will amuse and entertain. All are welcome. The room has limited capacity so come early to avoid having to sit downstairs playing board games and wondering what everyone is up to!

Full details of the teach-out this coming Wednesday:

Unions and the Media, an online teach-out: Wednesday February 22nd, 2:30-5pm (Teams link) We will start with a Trade Unions 101 by Anthony Kevins: Is a trade union like a student union? Are strikes just protests? And why are strikes even a thing? In this brief introduction to trade unions, we’ll cover everything you ever wanted to know about collective bargaining but were too afraid to ask. Bring your questions! Then John Downey will present a talk entitled ‘What about the workers? How do news media frame unions and what we can do about it’ discussing unions, inequality, and media representation, including reflections on how UCU does self-mediation and how it is being represented in the current dispute.

A reminder of the rest of our scheduled teach-outs:

Organising and Power, an online teach-out: Wednesday 1st March, 2:30-5pm (Teams link)
Memories of anti-racism, a hybrid teach-out:Thursday 16th March, 11am-12 noon in-person and online (Teams link) Charnwood Arts (address: 27 Rectory Pl, Loughborough LE11 1UW)

LUCU Committee

14th February 202314th February 2023

Picket in Loughborough on Thursday – 16th Feb

Thanks again to everyone who was involved in the busy and engaging UCU rising pickets we held on the 1^st and 9^th of February.

This Week’s Picket

This week the branch has organised a picket on Lboro campus. It will take place on Thursday 16^th February. The picket will be at the Shirley Pearce Pedestrian Crossing (on Epinal Way – exact location) from 8:30am to 10:30am. We hope to see as many of you there as possible. The longer the picket line, the shorter the dispute.

Future Picket Dates, Times & Locations

Strike Day	Picket Time	Picket Location
Wed 22nd Feb	11:30-14:00	Holywell Gate
Wed 1st March	11:30-14:00	Holywell Gate
Thurs 16th March	8:30-10:30	Main Gate
Mon 20th March	8:30-10:30	Main Gate

Future London picket details will be communicated as and when they are arranged.

Although we are only picketing on the above dates, please remember that the following dates are also strike days.

February: Wed 15^th, Tues 21^st, Thurs 23^rd, Mon 27^th& Tues 28^th.

March: Thurs 2^nd, Fri 17^th, Tues 21^st & Wed 22^nd.

Reminder of Teach Outs

We now have three teach outs planned during this period of industrial action. Please advertise these events to your colleagues, students and anyone else who may be interested in joining us. We have linked a poster and would love if you can print out and put up around campus to encourage people to attend these events.

Unions and the Media, an online teach-out: Wednesday February 22nd, 2:30-5pm (Teams link): We will start with a Trade Unions 101 by Anthony Kevins: Is a trade union like a student union? Are strikes just protests? And why are strikes even a thing? In this brief introduction to trade unions, we’ll cover everything you ever wanted to know about collective bargaining but were too afraid to ask. Bring your questions! Then John Downey will present a talk entitled ‘What about the workers? How do news media frame unions and what we can do about it’ discussing unions, inequality, and media representation, including reflections on how UCU does self-mediation and how it is being represented in the current dispute.

Organising and Power, an online teach-out: Wednesday 1st March, 2:30-5pm (Teams link): Ruth Kinna will give a talk (open to all staff and students) about Rose Pesotta (1896–1965), anarchist, feminist and labour organizer in the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union, then Alexandre Christoyannopoulos will lead a workshop (for LUCU members only) introducing methods from the Organizing for Power workshops that some members attended last year, with time for discussion about how they could work within Loughborough UCU.

Memories of anti-racism, a hybrid teach-out: Thursday 16th March, 11am-12 noon in-person and online (Teams link): Emily Keightley will introduce the Migrant Memory and Postcolonial Imagination exhibition at Charnwood Arts (address: 27 Rectory Pl, Loughborough LE11 1UW), and will talk about histories and memories of anti-racist protest and experiences of racism in Loughborough and East London.

Resources for Staff

Please regularly check our website for updated versions of strike resources for staff such as out of office messages, email templates you can send to students or use on learn and slides for students.

Branch TikTok

With the aim of reaching out to more students the branch has set up a TikTok account and started releasing videos on that platform. Please take a look and give the videos a like and, if you use TikTok, follow our profile. Click the links for videos: TikTok1 and TikTok2. More TikTok videos coming soon. We have also released the same videos on all our existing social media (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube ). Liking and sharing our social media posts helps boost awareness of the ucuRISING dispute and the issues we are facing, so all help with that is very much appreciated.

LUCU Committee

8th February 20238th February 2023

Pickets in Loughborough and London – 9th Feb

Thanks again to everyone who was involved in the busy and engaging UCU rising picket we held on the 1^st February, and also to those who came to the planning meeting that followed.

This Week’s Pickets

This week the branch has organised pickets on both Lboro and London campuses. Both will take place on Thursday 9^th February. The Loughborough picket will be at the Shirley Pearce Pedestrian Crossing (on Epinal Way – exact location) from 8:30am to 10:30am. The London picket will be at the main entrance of the London campus building from 9am – 11am. We hope to see as many of you there as possible. The longer the picket line, the shorter the dispute.

Future Picket Dates, Times & Locations

Strike Day	Picket Time	Picket Location
Thurs 16th Feb	8:30-10:30	Shirley Pearce Pedestrian Crossing
Wed 22nd Feb	11:30-14:00	Holywell Gate
Wed 1st March	11:30-14:00	Holywell Gate
Thurs 16th March	8:30-10:30	Main Gate
Mon 20th March	8:30-10:30	Main Gate

Future London picket details will be communicated as and when they are arranged.

Although we are only picketing on the above dates, please remember that the following dates are also strike days.

February: Fri 10^th, Tues 14^th, Wed 15^th, Tues 21^st, Thurs 23^rd, Mon 27^th& Tues 28^th.

March: Thurs 2^nd, Fri 17^th, Tues 21^st & Wed 22^nd.

Update on Teach Outs

We now have three teach outs planned during this period of industrial action, unfortunately the ones we had hoped to hold in the LSU building will now have to be on-line only due to no rooms being available. Please advertise these events to your colleagues, students and anyone else who may be interested in joining us.

Unions and the Media, an online teach-out: Wednesday February 22nd, 2:30-5pm (Teams link): We will start with a Trade Unions 101 by Anthony Kevins: Is a trade union like a student union? Are strikes just protests? And why are strikes even a thing? In this brief introduction to trade unions, we’ll cover everything you ever wanted to know about collective bargaining but were too afraid to ask. Bring your questions! Then John Downey will present a talk entitled ‘What about the workers? How do news media frame unions and what we can do about it’ discussing unions, inequality, and media representation, including reflections on how UCU does self-mediation and how it is being represented in the current dispute.

Resources for Staff

Please regularly check our website for updated versions of strike resources for staff such as out of office messages, email templates you can send to students or use on learn and slides for students.

LUCU Committee

3rd February 2023

UCU Rising Picket Dates and More

Firstly, thanks to all those who attended our picket on the 1^st February. It was great to see so many people out in support of the UCU Rising dispute. Following on from the picket we held a productive meeting to plan the rest of our action where many members contributed to an engaging discussion. It was really inspiring to see so many members getting involved and volunteering to take actions. A summary of the outcomes agreed by members at the meeting is below.

Targeted Picketing

It was agreed that we would target picketing to 6 days (one per week of the strike action), please attend as many of these pickets as you can. As always friends, family and supporters are more than welcome on our pickets:

Strike Day	Picket Time	Picket Location
Thurs 9th Feb	8:30-10:30	Shirley Pearce Pedestrian Crossing
Thurs 16th Feb	8:30-10:30	Shirley Pearce Pedestrian Crossing
Wed 22nd Feb	11:30-14:00	Holywell Gate
Wed 1st March	11:30-14:00	Holywell Gate
Thurs 16th March	8:30-10:30	Main Gate
Mon 20th March	8:30-10:30	Main Gate

London picket details will be communicated in due course.

Although we are only picketing on the above dates, please remember that the following dates are also strike days.

February: Fri 10^th, Tues 14^th, Wed 15^th, Tues 21^st, Thurs 23^rd, Mon 27^th& Tues 28^th.

March: Thurs 2^nd, Fri 17^th, Tues 21^st & Wed 22^nd.

Teach Outs

We have also had several people volunteer to host Teach Out sessions. We hope these sessions will be hybrid meetings and will confirm details nearer the time. Anyone else interested in hosting a teach out session on any of the strike days please get in touch with the branch. Presently this is our plan:

22^nd Feb at 2:30pm at the LSU (tbc) – Two members will host a teach out on the subject of Unions and the Media.
16^th March at 11am at Charnwood Arts (tbc) – A member will host a teach out on Colonialism and Anti-racism – followed by a members meeting.

Resources for Staff

Please regularly check our website for updated versions of strike resources for staff such as out of office messages, email templates you can send to students or use on learn and slides for students.

LUCU Committee

16th March 2022

USS & Four Fights Strike Update – 15th March

USS & Four Fights Strike Update

Additional Strike Days Announced

We will be taking an additional 5 days of strike action over USS & Four Fights from Monday 21^st to Friday 25^th March to put additional pressure on employers. Thank you to all our members who’ve been part of the action.

Picket Details

We will be picketing the gates of Loughborough University again from the 21^st to 25^th March. Picketing will start at 8am and conclude around 11am. Please let Marc Gibson know if you will be able to join the pickets.

Re-balloting of Members

Our current strike mandate runs out on the 3^rd of May and the UCU HEC have decided to re-ballot all members at Loughborough (and the 148 other HEIs) on both Four Fights and USS to extend the strike mandate. The ballot will open on Wednesday 16^th March. Please check your postal details are correct on MyUCU now, and please look out for your ballot pack arriving in the post. It should contain 2 ballots, one for USS and one for Four Fights. Please complete both and return as soon as possible. The ballot period will close on Friday 8^th April.

USS Legal Action – Crowdfunding Appeal

This is a joint effort from many university branches who believe in fair pensions and a living planet. Its organising group includes Dr Neil Davies, Bristol UCU, and Dr Ewan McGaughey, KCL UCU and the below is taken from their latest update.

We wanted to update you about the legal action against the USS directors over cuts to our pensions and management of the USS. As you may have heard, we won our first oral hearing, and now we need to raise more to cover costs for the next on 28 March.

If you can donate it will make a huge difference. The current pensions cuts leave many of us £100,000’s worse off in retirement (see modeller). If we win, we could get an injunction against the cuts that will happen on 1 April. We have 3 weeks to save the pension, so please donate now, and share with everyone you know!

Legal case progress to now – In August last year, we raised £50,000 to start legal action against the USS directors. Many thanks to the over 1700 people who contributed. These donations paid for our legal team to develop our claim, which we submitted last Autumn. On the 28^th of February, our barrister presented the case at an initial hearing at the High Court judge and requested permission to proceed to the next stage – a full contested hearing. We were successful, and the judge recognised the urgency of our claim and granted us a contested hearing on the 28th of March. He ruled that we have a prima facie case and that we were acting in good faith. If we are successful at the next hearing, we will be able to proceed with the legal action against the directors, which may be paid for by USS Limited (the company that runs our pensions). We have four claims:

That the 2020 valuation was flawed and unnecessary
USS costs are excessive
The changes discriminate against women, younger and minority colleagues
The USS has failed to have a credible plan to divest from fossil fuels, and this causes significant financial detriment

Crowdfunding – However, to proceed with the next hearing, we urgently need to raise more money to cover the legal costs of the full hearing. So we would be very grateful if you could contribute to our crowdfund. Time is short, so if you could donate here asap – we would greatly appreciate it! If there is any money remaining in the crowdfund after the legal action is complete, we will use it for further legal action over the USS, for example, seeking judicial review of The Pensions Regulator. If there are no further legal options, or we get everything we want (a reasonable valuation, a cost-effective pension scheme, a pensions proposal that is not discriminatory, and divestment from fossil fuels), then we will donate any remaining funds to a charity.

LUCU Committee

11th February 2022

LUCU Strike Bulletin – 10 February 2022

Call for pickets

We are asking you to come forwards to help the branch mount pickets across all gates of the University during the strike. Please contact Marc Gibson M.A.Gibson@lboro.ac.uk

Deductions

The branch understands that deductions for the forthcoming strikes will again be staggered in March and April and is a token of the good relations that continue here between the branch and LU’s senior managers, for which we continue to be grateful.

Out of Office Message

Please find a suggested Out Of Office Message that you may adopt or use as the basis of your own message during strike action:

I am taking part in the UCU industrial action to protect pensions, and to end gender, race and disability pay gaps, precarious employment contracts and excessive workloads. During the strike period beginning 14^th February, I will not be answering emails.

If you are a student and need to discuss a wellbeing issue, please contact: <insert details here>

If you would like further information about the reasons for the UCU industrial action, you can follow these links: here, or here.

Your closing address
Your name

Information for students

It is important to keep students as ‘on side’ as possible, and, while members are not obliged to declare strike action in advance, in keeping with the spirit of ‘good will’ shown by management in staggering deductions, we invite members to inform students and colleagues that you will not be teaching/keeping your appointments. Here is a suggested template that you may adapt for use with your students, either in an email or on your LEARN pages (you may wish to put in figures that reflect your own prospective losses):

Dear <name>

You may be aware that the University and College Union (UCU), which represents lecturers and professional services staff such as librarians and IT specialists, has called a strike beginning on Monday, 14 February and extending in its first phase until Tuesday 22 February (inclusive).

As a member of the union, I am writing to let you know that I will be observing this strike. This means that none of my teaching on those days will take place. I would like to take this opportunity to explain why I believe it necessary to take strike action, and would appreciate it if you can take a moment to consider my message.

The first and most important reason staff are striking is to resist drastic cuts proposed to their pensions. Depending on their age, lecturers stand to lose between 25% and 35% of their income in retirement. Personally, I face losing 27% of my pension, INSERT YOUR OWN FIGURE HERE IF YOU WISH and this level of financial loss would result in unsustainable damage to my living standards in retirement. These cuts are based on a flawed model of what the pension scheme is worth and how it is likely to perform in future. UCU has tabled alternative, workable proposals for the pension scheme that, at present, employers are refusing to engage with. Loughborough University’s management agrees with the union that the valuation of the pension scheme is problematic; however, this issue cannot be solved at a local level. Therefore, the union has called national strike action in order to exert pressure on university employers to negotiate in good faith and to find a fair solution.

The second reason for taking strike action is what UCU calls the ‘Four Fights’ (addressing major problems in the university sector of falling pay, excessive workload, inequality, and insecure employment contracts).

Taking strike action is a very difficult thing to do and something we consider only as a last resort. For one thing, our pay is deducted when we are on strike. But it is also difficult because we want to be doing our jobs, the most important and enjoyable part of which is giving students the best possible learning experience. I know that having your teaching cancelled will cause you disappointment and frustration, but I hope that you can understand my reasons for taking strike action, even if you may not agree with them.

If you would like to learn more about the industrial action, please take a look at this video which has been made by a Loughborough lecturer, and which has been shared with LSU for circulation to their members.

Your sincerely

30th November 2021

LUCU News December 2021

USS: Response to Vice-Chancellor’s email

We have reported on our ongoing work with management related to workload, EDI and casualisation in previous newsletters, so we concentrate here on USS.

We welcome the University’s continuing willingness to discuss these issues with the branch. This has led to a several important developments. Firstly, we are pleased that the University continues to recognise that the current USS valuation is excessively prudent and that, as a result, the cuts to our pensions we are being asked to accept are unnecessary. Secondly, we are also pleased that the University has called for a new evidence-based, moderately prudent valuation to supersede the existing flawed valuation.

Making such a call was one of the two demands that UCU made of employers in the current dispute. Finally, we very much welcome the University’s acceptance that UUK should provide the same level of covenant support to all proposals considered at the Joint Negotiating Committee (JNC). UUK’s refusal to do this in August, with the consequence that UCU’s proposals could not be considered, is a direct cause of the industrial action scheduled.

However, we are disappointed that the University is not willing to call for the current UUK proposals to be withdrawn, the second of the two demands in UCU’s dispute letter. The rationale given by the Vice Chancellor – this would mean that we would be on a path to crippling contribution increases – is unjustified for at least two reasons. The first is that it ignores the fact that employers’ actions put staff on a path to crippling pension cuts. Essentially the Vice Chancellor’s argument is that the costs associated with the flawed 2020 valuation are so crippling that the University cannot risk being exposed to a share of them, so staff must be exposed to almost 100% of these costs instead. This is simply not fair. The second reason is (as explained here) withdrawing the UUK proposals would not involve significant contribution rises until October 2022. This would create enough space to find a negotiated settlement without the need for industrial action. Such a settlement would prevent the unaffordable increases scheduled for that date.

To be clear, the forthcoming industrial action would not be necessary if employers were willing to (i) call for a new evidence-based, moderately prudent valuation, and (ii) withdraw the current UUK proposals, and (iii) enter into good faith negotiations to find a fairer solution. We are very pleased that the University accepts (i) and (iii), but we are disappointed that it has chosen industrial action over calling for the withdrawal of the UUK proposals.

EGM Report: USS/Four Fights/Industrial Action

At the UCU delegates’ meeting on 12 November, the Branch representatives voted in line with the views expressed by Loughborough members at the EGM two days earlier: that is, in support of re-balloting universities that did not reach the 50% threshold, with industrial action to begin in the New Year.

The NEC met the following week and indeed decided to re-ballot those universities, but also to initiate strike action before the Christmas break. Therefore, failing a last-minute breakthrough in negotiations, we will be on strike on December 1-3 inclusive. We encourage you to let students know in advance if you will be taking part in strike action so as to maintain good relations and to avoid causing them undue inconvenience.

We are grateful to senior management for agreeing to delay pay deductions for December strike action until February, and for agreeing to maintain pension contributions during the action.

Pickets

There will be in-person pickets on campus each day. We will meet at the main University entrance at 8:00 am and picket until approximately 11 o’clock. There will be a BBQ on Friday.

BBQ on the Picket Line

To keep members safe, hand sanitiser will be provided as required on picket lines, social distancing will be observed, a list of participants for contact tracing purposes will be kept, and members intending to join the picket are asked to take a lateral flow test before participating.

Members who do not wish to use public transport to attend a picket might consider offering or taking part in virtual forms of action, such as organising a teach-in or using social media to distribute fliers and messages.

If you can support the action by joining a picket, offering a virtual event, or helping to advertise the action, please contact Marc Gibson.

Out of Office Message

Below is a suggested out-of-office message for you to use during the period of industrial action. Of course, please feel free to adapt as you see fit:

I am currently unavailable as I am taking part in the University and College Union’s (UCU) strike action to defend our right to a fair pension. Please redirect your query to the University management, asking them to use their leverage to help secure a return to negotiations.

Solidarity with Leicester UCU

Some of our members will be supporting Leicester colleagues to GTVO in their re-ballot on USS. If you can’t travel to join the Loughborough picket line, but live in Leicester, please consider visiting their picket lines: they propose an 8:30 am start, with each day ending with a rally and march at 11am.

Branch News

LUCU Health and Safety officers undertook a programme of health and safety inspections in one School (as per Regulation 5 of the 1977 Safety Representatives and Safety Committee Regulations), following multiple reports from members in three subject areas who reported excessive workloads and work-related stressors that were having a detrimental impact on their physical and mental wellbeing.

The inspection took place between 26 October and 19 November. Four meetings chaired by a LUCU H&S officer enabled participants (both members and non-members in the School) to feed back on their work experience in terms of Demands (workload, work patterns and environment); Control (how much say they have over how they work); Support (resources provided both centrally by the University and by line management); and Change (how changes are managed and communicated). This was followed up by a survey. In total, we captured feedback from 66 staff.

The data collected revealed significant stress hazards, and a discursive analysis of responses, along with the survey results, was submitted to HR, with a request that management urgently develop an action plan to address the problems (with deadlines for reaching interim targets, as well as long term improvements). We are pleased to report that the University recognizes the validity of concerns about staff wellbeing in the School, and a meeting is scheduled between HR and the School’s SMT to start formulating an action plan. We will continue to monitor the situation through our reps, as well as through consultation with management about progress on the action plan.

New Reps

We would like to welcome two new reps. Saul Albert, who lectures on social psychology in Social Sciences and Humanities, is our new rep in Communications and Media. Tony Sutton, who is a University Teacher in Wolfson, will now be representing members in Mechanical Engineering. Saul succeeds Dominic Wring, while Tony is taking over from Kaddour Bouazza-Marouf. The Branch Committee would like to thank Dom and Kaddour for their many years of excellent service to members in their areas.

LUCU reps serve as essential ‘on the ground’ points of contact for members. If you might be interested in serving as a rep for your area and would like to know more about what the role entails, we encourage you to talk to our Membership Secretary Marie Hanlon.

LUCU Committee