Category Archives: News

Members’ Meeting 27 April

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There will be an online meeting on Thursday 27 April from 3.30 to 4.30 to discuss the practicalities of staging a successful the marking and assessment boycott and how we should react to the disproportionate salary deductions announced by Heriot-Watt. We will be voting on motions so it is important that as many members attend as possible.

Zoom links have been sent by email. For a reminder please contact your rep or one of the officers on the branch committee.

If you need BSL interpreting please contact marion.fletcher@hw.ac.uk to arrange. If you need to speak to us about anything else, or if you need advice or reassurance about anything related to the MAB please contact us in confidence at HWGTVO2022@gmail.com.

Guide to the Marking and Assessment Boycott

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UCU members at 145 institutions are taking part in the national Marking and Assessment Boycott (MAB) which began on Thursday 20 April. The boycott covers the marking of all assessed work and associated administrative activities, and also assessment-related work such as exam invigilation and the processing of marks.

Comprehensive information about what is involved can be found at UCU – Marking and assessment boycott FAQs along with a downloadable MAB Guide and a video about preparing for the marking and assessment boycott.

Deductions

Heriot-Watt have notified that they will deduct 100% from anyone taking part in the MAB but then pay back 50% of wages as a goodwill gesture in the anticipation that staff will continue to work. While staff are in boycott all work will be considered voluntary and staff will not be subject to discipline if they choose to do less than their normal hours.

The reason for this lies in interpretation of the law but it is clearly excessive relative to the amount of work involved. You can log into https://www.ucu.org.uk/ASOS-deductions to discover more about the legal position and download a template letter for challenging the basis of these punitive deductions.

The advice from UCU national is that staff should continue to work normal hours except for any marking duties. This is based on the premise that staff may eventually be able to claim back for deductions that are unfair and excessive.

In the meantime we will be putting pressure on the employer to reconsider these unfair attacks on staff, and escalating to strike action if necessary.

You should not go onto this until it is clear you are in boycott i.e. you have declared your participation.

Declaring participation

If you are asked whether you are taking part you must answer truthfully but you only have to say whether you are in boycott at that moment or have been in the past. HR have issued a form for this purpose and it is up to members to decide when is the most appropriate time to declare. Heriot-Watt have said that they may backdate any deductions to the day marking was ‘allocated’. If this happens to you and you think the date chosen is arbitrary or unfair please contact the branch for advice. It is important to remember that you do not have to notify of your intention in advance, and you have the right to change your mind at any moment.

Members are not obliged to specify which types or marking they are boycotting, just that they are taking part in the MAB. Members are not obliged to give information about action which they have not taken so the end date can be left blank in most cases 1 and the form can be returned without a signature as we have been advised by UCU that this is not required in law. If you take annual leave while in boycott you are entitled to full pay on those days. You will be similarly entitled to sick pay, maternity pay, contractual rest days and TOIL. You should include details of all leave in your declaration.

1 The exception to is is where you are only boycotting a one day event such as an exam board, and not otherwise involved in marking and assessment. In this case you should indicate that you were boycott for only a single day by letting them know on that day or afterwards that you were in boycott for that single day with a start date and an end date.

Migrant Workers

If you are on a Tier 2 / Skilled Worker visa please contact a branch rep about declaring participation. Your right to participate in industrial action is protected but the guidance for declaring is a little different.

In boycott

If you are pressured to work or do any particular tasks after you have declared that you are in boycott you should ask for confirmation in writing that you are being asked to work and will be paid for this work as normal. If this happens please let the branch know.

Not in boycott

If you are not in boycott and you are asked to do marking that is not yours, you should refuse. This will not count as joining the boycott. This is normal ASOS and you cannot be deducted, so it does not need to be declared. If you feel in any way pressured please let the branch know.

Ending the boycott

Depending on your own individual circumstances the boycott will end when:

  • The current mandate ends or the dispute is stood down. Employers can end this tabling a new offer on pay on working conditions. That is all it will take.
  • The single day event you were boycotting has passed
  • There is no marking allocated to you and no possibility of further marking or assessment (exam setting) being assigned to you at this point e.g. you marking has been done and the boards have passed and there is nothing left to mark i.e. there is nothing that you could refuse to do and you have therefore returned to your normal duties. If in doubt please contact the branch.
  • You are on annual leave, parental, maternity, rest day, agreed TOIL, or off sick.

Financial support

If you are eligible to apply to the national fighting fund for strike days taken between November and March, please apply now with your April payslip if all deductions have been taken so that you have some money to offset MAB deductions.

Support will also be available from the local hardship fund and we will post more information about this in due course.

How can I help?

You can help by donating to the branch hardship fund or by pledging a donation or series of donations to help support colleagues who are in the MAB and facing weeks of punitive deductions. Further information on how to pledge financial support will follow.

If you are asked to do marking that is not yours, please refuse. This does not constitute a boycott but it is very important that you do not ‘help out’ boycotting staff by doing their marking for them. Please let the branch know if you have been asked to do someone else’s marking.

If you are not already a member why not join the UCU today. We all help each other and there are opportunities range from simply being a sympathetic ear, through to campaigning and fundraising, and representing members as a caseworker or health and safety rep. It is a great opportunity to meet lots of new people and and do something really fulfilling. Full training is provided.

We “note” the pension’s not yet saved!

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Update on Save university pensions, and save the planet. This is a crowdfunded legal action separate from the UCU pension dispute. It may be of interest to members and non-members who are in the USS scheme. Updates published on behalf of the team at savepensionsandplanet.org.

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

As you’ll have seen, UCU members just voted by 85% to “note” the statement between UUK and UCU on restoring pension benefits and reducing contributions (by how much, we do not yet know!).

Of course, we know that the reason why USS directors suddenly started predicting surpluses (not nonsense deficits), why they changed the pension asset growth assumption from 0.0% above inflation to 0.29%, and now 1.8% above inflation for 30 years (to get those surpluses), why the failed CEO Bill Galvin resigned, and why they say they could restore benefits, is that we have sued them for their catastrophic failure. It’s great that UUK and UCU have done a joint statement, but we’re not yet done with the USS directors.

The USS directors didn’t suddenly have a change of heart. They didn’t suddenly say, “Eureka – there is no deficit”! They didn’t suddenly find the markets had improved after the Truss mini-budget, after the UK’s growth outlook was worse than Russia, or after the USS itself lost £450m in Russian investments following Putin’s criminal war on Ukraine.

No, we sued them. And we got leave to go to the Court of Appeal. Even though we did not win in the High Court, they know we’ve shone a torch on them. This very public pressure, the prospect of personal responsibility for the first time in the directors’ careers, this case that all the university employers could see, forced them to change. Together with everyone’s work, everyone’s solidarity, and everyone being on picket lines, your contribution to this court case is making a difference. Remember, the UCU Higher Education Sector Conference (HESC) and the UCU National Executive Committee (NEC) and dozens of UCU branches across the UK have agreed to support our case. However, the General Secretary has refused to do this, and so far, despite what was agreed at Conference and the NEC’s instructions, UCU national has not funded or publicised our case.

We still need to get a legally binding agreement on USS. UCU and UUK have agreed to restore benefits if it can be done “sustainably”. They have agreed to “explore” restoring pension benefits needlessly cut in April 2022. The USS directors cannot be forced to act or even be removed by UUK or UCU. The USS directors changed the USS Ltd constitution so that the only people who can remove existing board members are the board members themselves! Therefore it is absolutely essential that we take the case to the Court of Appeal to get the best possible, legally binding USS agreement.

So we still need to go to the Court of Appeal. Help us:

  • raise the final £120k – 90% of donations, have been from small contributions;
  • ask your branch for Ewan and Neil to come to a special or general meeting to talk about the case;
  • ask your branch to circulate a call for donations to all members (even if the General Secretary won’t listen to the NEC and HESC);
  • by considering giving another £15 – if everyone who’s already donated gave again, we’d make what we need;
  • get in touch if you have more ideas for fundraising, especially if you have contacts at environmental groups that could be interested in the case for divesting fossil fuels, and ending climate risk.

Thanks once again for all your help!

Best wishes,
Ewan and Neil

USS legal action crowdfund update

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Note: This is a crowdfunded legal action separate from the UCU pension dispute. It may be of interest to members and non-members who are in the USS scheme. Updates published on behalf of the team at savepensionsandplanet.org.

Dear colleagues,

Thank you for supporting the USS campaign.

We’re making excellent progress with the crowdfund and are about 65% of the way there. To finish this, we need your help! Almost 90% of the funding for the case has come from almost 10,000 donations from members, £10, £20, or £50 from individual members. We need to wrap up the fundraising so that we can focus on the legal arguments.

Please support the case by:

UUK, UCU, and USS negotiations – this case is still essential

Do the recent statements from UUK and UCU, which note the possibility of benefit restoration, mean we don’t need to go to the Court of Appeal? No, taking the case to the Court of Appeal is still essential. These statements were made and are likely only possible because of the USS legal action.

A judgement from the Court of Appeal would demonstrate that the USS directors, who run the scheme on our behalf, must act within the law and fulfil their legal obligations to members. If the case is not heard in the Court of Appeal, the directors will conclude that they are unlikely to face any meaningful legal challenge from members. They, and TPR are likely to return to their pre-2021 strategy of ramping up scheme costs to close the DB scheme. The only way to prevent this is by hearing the case in the Court of Appeal.

Please support the case with whatever you can at https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/save-pensions-and-planet/, so we can win in the Court of Appeal.

As ever, please let me know if you’d rather not receive further emails.

All the best,
Neil, Ewan and the rest of the team

HEC recommend reject on 4F and note on USS

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The emails have started to arrive.This is a formal consultation which has been called by our Higher Education Committee (HEC).

Please read the proposals, the recommendations from our HEC, and the reports from our negotiators. The HEC has recommended reject on the Four Fights and to note on the USS. For the purpose of this consultation note means stand down action on USS for now but keep the mandate so we can strike at the beginning of next session if satisfactory progress has not been made. This is independent of on-going action on pay and conditions. HEC’s reasoning is explained in the email with reference to the supporting documentation. It is in line with branch position and the previous consultative survey.

This is your dispute, so please have your say. The vote will be open until 10am on Monday 17 April.

We did it!

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Today we smashed the ballot thresholds in both of the pension and pay and conditions disputes, renewing our mandate for another 6 months.

In the pension ballot, the yes vote was 89% on a turnout 58.4%. In the pay and conditions ballot, 85.6% on a turnout of 56.4%. The Yes vote is up in both disputes.

Follow-up consultation

Members will now be consulted on how to proceed in both disputes via an electronic consultation.

There has been progress but no offer in the pension dispute and the recommendation from Higher Education Committee (HEC) is that members should vote to note backed by the renewed mandate which will allow us to resume strike action after the employer consultation later this year if necessary. The most recent indications are that the full restoration of benefits is affordable.

HEC recommends that members reject the proposals in the 4-Fights dispute over pay and conditions. A yes vote would see no further improvement in the pay offer for this year or next and we would not be able to further industrial action until February 2024 due to pre-conditions on negotiation imposed by the employer.

The HEC recommendations are consistent with the branch position established at the recent quorate member meeting.

When you do receive the consultation email, please take the time to read the reports from the negotiators and consider the options.

Response to email from the Principal

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I would like to respond to the Principal Richard A Williams comments in the staff update email about industrial action from Tuesday 23 March.

The Principal describes his disappointment that the Higher Education Committee appears to have ignored the wishes of members. This is simply not the case. E-ballots are informal and BDMs are advisory. HEC decided that the offer was not enough of an improvement to be formally put to members. This is representative democracy.

Pausing action to put every offer directly to members in a formal ballot only encourages employers to make a series of meaningless offers in order to disrupt a dispute and kill the momentum of industrial action.

Members had already voted overwhelmingly to reject the pay offer in the previous snap e-ballot and little progress has been made on equality, casualisation, and workloads.

UCEA are also demanding that UCU agree to stand down industrial action for a year as a pre-condition of entering into further talks.

If the Principal would like to talk about ignoring survey results how about we start with recent staff satisfaction surveys where the need for better leadership/management is consistently one of the most commented themes, along with better pay and progression and more manageable workloads.

 

USS legal action update 7

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Note: This is a crowdfunded legal action separate from the UCU pension dispute. It may be of interest to members and non-members who are in the USS scheme. Updates published on behalf of the team at savepensionsandplanet.org.

Dear colleagues,

We have a date for our hearing at the Court of Appeal – the 13th of June! We urgently need your help to raise funds for the legal action to end the cycle of disputes over the USS and change it for good.

You can help in five ways:

  1. Donating via CrowdJustice, most (90%) of our funding has come from individual donations, £10, £20, £50, so please support the case!
  2. Asking your UCU branch to donate; see the model motion here
  3. Sharing the link to the CrowdJustice page with your colleagues – adapt and send one of our model messages around your departments or school.
  4. Attend the call with DivestUSS on Friday, 24th March, at 16.00 for more information about the USS and climate change
  5. print some posters and flyers and give them out! We’ve got one on divesting fossil fuels, one on reversing the pension cuts, and one with more details. Stick them up behind photocopiers, inside loo doors, in lifts, or where people queue for lunch. Or print and give it out on picket lines!

Thanks to your brilliant support, we’ve raised £375,000 of the £570,000 we need for the appeal hearing. We’ve had further donations from branches, including Warwick and Ulster, with further branches due to pass similar motions. We need to raise the remaining amount, and with your help we will.

Website and Twitter page: Please look at the new website and follow us on Twitter (@PensionsPlanet).

As ever, let us know if you have any questions or would rather not receive further emails about the USS.

All the best,
Neil, Ewan, Lindsey, Thomas and the rest of the team

We are staying out

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The sun was out and we are staying out. The Higher Education Committee met today and it was decided that we will continue with the strike action and that members do not need to be consulted on the latest empty offer from the employers. This is in line with how our branch membership voted ahead of yesterday’s Branch Delegate Meeting.

Please join us and show our employer that we are not happy with the offer. Our picket will be back on Monday morning. Same time, same place. If you are not already a member, take the first step and join today.

Re-ballot

Not to be confused with Wednesday’s e-ballot is the ongoing re-ballot. Legislation requires that we do this now so that our mandate for industrial action continues for another 6 months. No-one wants to strike but it is critical to the success of negotiations that we are able continue to maintain the leverage of potential strikes and marking and assessment boycotts if we are to get the best deal.

Be in the room with your negotiators. Please vote in the re-ballot, and please vote yes.

Replacement re-ballot papers can be ordered at https://yoursay.ucu.org.uk/s3/ucuRISING-ballotupdate

 

 

An empty offer, another e-ballot, and a BDM

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Thank-you brave few for the show of soggy solidarity on a soaking wet picket this morning. We could have all stayed home warm and dry to read about the latest offer from our employers. Except that it wasn’t really a new offer at all. There are some positive signs in the pensions dispute but so far nothing solid, just a committment on prioritisation of restoration of member benefits back to pre-April 2022 levels if it is affordable. Very little progress has been made in the Four Fights dispute, particularly on pay.

Consultative e-ballot and BDM

UCU national launched a consultative e-ballot on whether members should be consulted on the offer via a formal vote and whether the current industrial action should be paused in the meantime. Unfortunately the e-ballot rolled both into a single Yes/No question which is not ideal because apart from conflating the issues not all institutions are in USS and taking action over pension cuts.

An emergency meeting of the local branch committee was called at short notice last night to discuss and it was decided unanimously that we should run a local members’ poll to guage opinion on both seperately ahead of today’s Branch Delegates Meeting (BDM).

The majority vote was a very clear No to both with 78% against voting on the proposals and 88% against standing down strike action. This was presented at today’s Branch Delegate Meeting. The weighted votes from the BDM along with the results of the informal member e-ballot will inform a decision by the Higher Education Committee (HEC) who meet tomorrow. The HEC is the elected body that has authority to decide whether to consult members on an offer and to recommend how to vote and whether to cancel strike action.