Marking & Assessment Boycott Drop In Meeting

MAB Drop-in Meetings

These will take place between 2:30pm and 3pm every other Wednesday afternoon. Members, please drop in at any time during the half-hour to raise any concerns you have or to ask any questions. The link has been emailed to all members as a re-occurring meeting invite. If you need the link resending, please contact the branch.

Marking & Assessment Boycott Drop In Meeting

MAB Drop-in Meetings

These will take place between 2:30pm and 3pm every other Wednesday afternoon. Members, please drop in at any time during the half-hour to raise any concerns you have or to ask any questions. The link has been emailed to all members as a re-occurring meeting invite. If you need the link resending, please contact the branch.

Marking & Assessment Boycott Drop In Meeting

MAB Drop-in Meetings

These will take place between 2:30pm and 3pm every other Wednesday afternoon. Members, please drop in at any time during the half-hour to raise any concerns you have or to ask any questions. The link has been emailed to all members as a re-occurring meeting invite. If you need the link resending, please contact the branch.

Marking & Assessment Boycott Drop In Meeting

MAB Drop-in Meetings

These will take place between 2:30pm and 3pm every other Wednesday afternoon. Members, please drop in at any time during the half-hour to raise any concerns you have or to ask any questions. The link has been emailed to all members as a re-occurring meeting invite. If you need the link resending, please contact the branch.

Marking & Assessment Boycott Drop In Meeting

MAB Drop-in Meetings

These will take place between 2:30pm and 3pm every other Wednesday afternoon. Members, please drop in at any time during the half-hour to raise any concerns you have or to ask any questions. The link has been emailed to all members as a re-occurring meeting invite. If you need the link resending, please contact the branch.

LUCU News: June 2023

LUCU News: June 2023

Please read below for updates on LU General Assembly, MAB Support, Dispute Issues (Four Fights), our new Branch Equality Officer, our Congress Motion, Social Sciences Senate Elections & a BAME Staff Research Study.

General Assembly

Following our members’ requests for a General Assembly, we submitted a formal request to the Vice-Chancellor. A special meeting of General Assembly will take place at 3.30pm on Friday 16 June in the Edward Herbert Building 110A. The meeting is in-person only for staff based at Lboro campus. Only colleagues from London will be able to access the meeting online. Room LDN.3.23 has been booked by the University for colleagues in London.

This General Assembly was called for by our members and we urge you to attend. This is your opportunity to voice your views on the university’s response to the Marking and Assessment Boycott.

General Assembly is a collective staff forum established under the University’s Royal Charter. Its role is set out in Statute XV. All University staff are members of the General Assembly, so please encourage non-UCU members to attend as well.  Link to announcement on LU website.

Reminders: MAB support

We remind members that we have a weekly drop-in meeting every Wednesday – 2-3 pm – to support those who are participating in MAB and to answer any questions you may have. Please email the branch if you need the link to join.

The LUCU branch WhatsApp group is also a good source of support. If you haven’t already joined and would like to, you can do so by emailing the branch for a link. You can also speak to your department rep or email ucu@lboro.ac.uk should you need support.

To help the LUCU Committee build a picture of marking activity across campus, we would be grateful if you would email us with any information you have of unqualified markers appointed to cover marking at UG and PGT levels not completed as a result of the MAB, any instances where marks have not been properly moderated by a person qualified to do so, and any mitigations put in place that in your academic opinion are inappropriate.  Please email ucu@lboro.ac.uk providing details of: School, module, and reasons for believing either that the marker is unqualified, the moderation is lacking or undertaken by an unqualified marker, or the mitigation is inappropriate.   

Update on dispute issues: Workload; Casualisation; Equality

Workload: We now have a place on both the Project Enable and Project Expectation steering groups, enabling us to be at the centre of discussions on working practices in the interests of improving our members’ workloads.

Casualisation: We raised the need for revision of the LU Casual Staff Charter, created by the Task & Finish working group following our 2018 action.  Concerns over inconsistent implementation across Schools and sections was also raised with senior management, and agreement for a revision of the principles and a review of existing contracts across campus was reached.  Work on this is already well under way and we will provide an update on the outcomes in our next newsletter.

Equality: Agreement has been reached for union representation on the new EDI Operations board.  Our place on this board will rotate with Unite and Unison and we will work collaboratively towards equity for our members. We are also delighted to have appointed Ellen Nicholls as our Equality Rep – welcome Ellen!

Introducing our new branch Equality Officer

Ellen Nicholls was recently appointed by the Committee to serve out the rest of the 22/23 term as our branch Equality Officer. 

Ellen Nicholls, Careers Network. I am the Academic Success Co-Ordinator for the Student Success Academy (Careers Network) and I have worked at the University since 2021. Following the completion of my PhD research in 2019, I began working in widening participation, harnessing my passion for social justice by working to ensure all students have equal opportunities to succeed while studying at university. My work here at Loughborough centres on providing 1:1 academic success coaching and designing learning initiatives that help to reduce awarding gaps for Black, Asian, and low-household income students, in accordance with access and participation plan targets. As the equality officer for LUCU, it is my ambition to extend this EDI work to our staff, working towards gender and ethnicity pay equity for our members at the University.

2023 Glasgow Congress: LUCU Motion ‘UCU to move from Equality to Equity’

Our branch submitted and spoke to a motion to urge UCU to move toward the principles of Equity and implement use of the term Equity over Equality.  As you can see here, an amendment to the motion was put forward, and following debate Congress voted to remit the motion with an agreement to take it to the LGBTQ+ Conference in Birmingham in November this year. Two members of the LUCU Committee will attend the conference and any other members who wish to join them are very welcome. To register your interest, please email ucu@lboro.ac.uk and we will inform you when registration is live.

You can find the full results of voting on motions here.

Social Sciences Senate Elections

There are currently two vacancies on Senate, from 1st August 2023, for members of academic staff in the School of Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH). Voting is open to all academic staff in SSH and you should have received an email with a link to vote: we encourage you to use this.

The LUCU Committee is promoting the candidacy of three of our members who are in the running for these positions. Please consider voting for Dr Giulia Piccolino, Dr Sarah Parker and Dr Paul Maddrell (in any order you choose) for your first three preference votes. Their candidate statements are available on the link to vote. If you have not yet voted, please check your email and look for “Subject: Ballot Notice: Senate Election for Academic Members of Staff in SSH”. The ballot is now open and will close on Thursday 22 June.

Call for Participants: Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic Staff Research Study

Are you a BAME (Black, Asian, or Minority Ethnic) staff member who would like to get involved in a research study?

One of our PhD researchers here at Loughborough University is conducting a study which seeks to examine BAME employees’ lived experiences of racial diversity management policies and practices. This research will seek to understand the impact diversity management practices have on BAME employees as well as the contexts that account for employees’ experiences of such policies/practices.

To find out more about how to get involved, please click here.

LUCU Committee

Important Update on MAB & Deductions

Important Update on MAB & Deductions

MAB and New Methodology for Deductions

Since the university announced that deductions would be imposed for MAB, branch officers have attended multiple meetings with the head of HR, Anne Lamb, the Chief Operating Officer, Richard Taylor, and the VC, Nick Jennings. Following these meetings, an improved formula for deductions has been announced by the university – please see the original communication here that explains the new methodology and the university’s reporting process.

While it was hoped that management would opt for no deductions, once it became clear that deductions would be made, we pressed for a system based on proportionality, that is, to be based on how much work an individual was withholding due to participation in MAB. 

Unfortunately, management would not agree to proportional deductions. However, the new methodology for deductions represents a better position for members: 1) deductions for members who choose to participate in MAB are subject to a cap of 10 days at 35% for not marking; 2) deductions for boycotting assessment related tasks (e.g. exam boards, MC panels, etc.) will also be capped at 10 days.

We advise members to follow HR’s instruction to report their participation in MAB, as this does not necessarily equate to an acceptance of the university’s policy on MAB, but it protects members in terms of following the legal duty to report participation.  We are aware that some members would like to challenge these deductions formally based on proportionality, and the new methodology does not preclude members from mounting an individual legal challenge in the county courts.

Human Resources has now completed the FAQs and you can find the updated version here. If you have further questions, please contact your HR Partner or your Dean. Please copy in ucu@lboro.ac.uk so that we can keep track of questions as they arise.

We remind members that we have a weekly drop-in meeting every Wednesday – 2-3 pm – to support those who are participating in MAB. If you need the link to join, please email ucu@lboro.ac.uk.

Fighting Fund Update

We encourage you to make use of both the national and local fighting funds, as applicable. For many of us this is a challenging time, financially, and we want to make sure you know you can claim for strike days where you have lost wages.

Since the passing of a motion at our EGM the Friday before last, extra financial help is available from the local branch fighting fund for members who are either:

  • Hourly paid, or
  • Are facing immediate financial hardship as a direct result of strike action e.g. difficulty paying for essentials for themselves or their dependants.

The local fund will pay out for the first day of strike action, and any later days which are not covered by the national fund, which is currently capped at 11 days for the period up to 1st May.

It can also be used for MAB deductions, which are currently only covered by the national fund for universities where deductions are at least 50% (Please see Jo Grady Email sent Tuesday).

To make a claim from the local fund, please send the following to our treasurer David Wilson:

Claims for loss of hourly earnings:

  • confirmation from your School or Department of the hours not worked due to striking
  • the number of hours missed and the hourly rate of pay you receive
  • your normal annual earnings (so that we can verify you are paying the correct subscription level and determine which level of payment you are eligible for)

Claims for financial hardship:

  • a list of days on which you have taken action
  • payslips showing total deductions (including those covered by the national fund)
  • your normal annual earnings (so that we can verify you are paying the correct subscription level and determine which level of payment you are eligible for)

Payments can be made up the normal daily maximum, i.e. £50 per day for members earning £30,000 and £75 per day for members earning less than £30,000, gross annually.

Note that due to national UCU rules, claims to the local fund must be made within 3 months of the deductions. We are seeking to change this to 12 months to match the national fighting fund rules.

Donations to the LUCU local fighting fund

It is important that members who are in a financial position to so donate to the to our local fighting fund as soon as possible, as well as promoting the fund to encourage others to donate. Please be as generous as you can. It is especially important that members who will not be impacted by pay deductions for MAB contribute to the fund in order to support those members who will suffer substantial financial detriment as a result of their participation. You can donate via a bank transfer, please contact David Wilson for the details.

LUCU Committee

Marking & Assessment Boycott Drop In Meeting

Weekly MAB Drop-in Meetings

These will take place between 2pm and 3pm every Wednesday afternoon. Members, please drop in at any time during the hour to raise any concerns you have or to ask any questions. The link has been emailed to all members as a re-occurring meeting invite. If you need the link resending, please contact the branch.

Marking & Assessment Boycott Drop In Meeting

Weekly MAB Drop-in Meetings

These will take place between 2pm and 3pm every Wednesday afternoon. Members, please drop in at any time during the hour to raise any concerns you have or to ask any questions. The link has been emailed to all members as a re-occurring meeting invite. If you need the link resending, please contact the branch.

Marking & Assessment Boycott Drop In Meeting

Weekly MAB Drop-in Meetings

These will take place between 2pm and 3pm every Wednesday afternoon. Members, please drop in at any time during the hour to raise any concerns you have or to ask any questions. The link has been emailed to all members as a re-occurring meeting invite. If you need the link resending, please contact the branch.