Category Archives: On strike

Members’ Meeting to discuss offer from management

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We are scheduling a Members’ Meeting for 13:00 on Friday 13 March to discuss a potential offer which we are expecting to receive from the university management.

If an offer is made we will discuss and vote on it as a branch at the meeting. If an offer is not received the meeting will still proceed so that we can update members on the dispute and discuss the next steps.

The branch negotiators have made it clear that members would be unlikely to agree to call off further strike action unless we receive an offer which resolves the dispute.

If members have any questions about the negotiations and the strike action scheduled to start on Tuesday 17 March we will be able to answer them at the meeting.

If you can, please attend the meeting and be part of the discussions. We appreciate that not all members will be able to make the meeting and we will send out an update by email after for those who were unable to attend.

We look forward to seeing as many members as possible on Friday.

Action Short of Strike

We are currently undertaking Action Short of Strike (ASOS) until the dispute is resolved. Guidance on ASOS can be found at https://www.ucu.org.uk/article/13289/Taking-action-short-of-a-strike-ASOS

Observing ASOS helps us keep pressure on our employer by amplifing the impact of our strike action, so please do support your branch by following the ASOS guidance.

Heriot-Watt is on strike for fair pay and working conditions

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Monday

Our employers may consider the 2022-23 pay negotiations to have been concluded with the imposed national uplift, but we do not. It fell far short. The 4-Fights dispute over fair pay and working conditions will continue until the Vice Chancellors use some of the record income that the sector is generating and the piles cash on which they are sitting to address the erosion of everyone else’s pay apart from their own and tackle the issues of excessive workloads, inequality, and insecure contracts.

We are on strike because we care passionately about our students, our stakeholders and research partners, our local community, and the environment. Our senior leadership team are failing to deliver on Strategy 2025 and the key performance indicators by which they should be judged. Staff and student satisfaction is at an all-time low, student to staff ratios are increasing, teaching and research facilities are inadequate, and our support systems are a shambles. These failures are reflected in our rankings and failures to secure funding. Shamelessly executive pay has increased, and it is the same up and down the country. It is the experience which should be rich, not the fat cats at the top.

You can help make it better. Support our staff. Support our students. Save the planet. Support the strike!

Strike action confirmed for week of 25-29 September

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A big thank-you to all of the local members who were able to attend the online EGM yesterday and contribute to the discussions and vote at such short notice. The meeting was quorate and the vote was overwhelmingly in favour of continuing the strike action, consistent with the branch position at the end of August when members voted in favour of using the remaining mandate for strike action.

It is the beginning of a new session and no-one wants to be on strike but we need to hit our employers hard in order to force them back into negotiations over pay and working conditions. The only way to do this is with a complete withdrawal of labour. We will be standing with UCU members from branches up and down the UK as well as colleagues from Unite and Unison who remain committed to collective action as a means to secure fair pay and working conditions across the sector.

Picket line

The picket will form 8.00am each morning at the main gate and there with a group photo opportunity at 10.00am.

Strike Pay

Members will be able to apply to the national fighting fund for days 3,4 and 5 of the strike. We will take a vote to the branch members to enable the local hardship fund to be used to support members for days 1 and 2.

 

 

Emergency Members’ Meeting 19 September 2023

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We will be holding and online Emergency Members’ Meeting via Zoom at 4.00pm on Tuesday 19 September 2023 to consult branch members about next week’s strike action over pay and working conditions as requested by UCU national.

Please check your inbox for the link to the meeting.

We will try to keep it short with a brief introduction from the branch committee that sets out the current position with all the relevant information. Make no mistake, our employers and UCEA are continuing to try and sit this out with little regard for staff and student welfare, or academic standards. After this there will be an opportunity for questions, clarification, and debate. We will move to voting as close to 4.30pm as possible.

After any votes there will be some time for a more general discussion on how to progress the dispute both locally and nationally, and what we might want to feed back to UCU national.

There will be an opportunity to raise and discuss other issues relating to working at HWU under AOB at the end of the meeting.

It is very short notice but it is very important that you attend and have your say at a quorate meeting. Please attend if at all possible.

MAB withdrawn and new strike days announced

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Following a consultative e-ballot with the membership UCU national have announced that Marking and Assessment Boycott has been withdrawn as of 6 September 2023.

With the MAB called off members can resume marking duties and the setting of assessments but only as and when it fits in around other demands at work. If your manager or anyone else at work tries to pressure you into doing work immediately or in an unrealistic time frame given other jobs, please contact your local rep.

School reps will be meeting with mangers to discuss which marking is and is not required, the order in which it will be done and how it is fit around other work in what is already a very bus time of year. We are still working ASOS and no-one should be working beyond their contracted hours.

This will be the first time that our employers have not returned wages in return for marking.

If you have queries about the number of days deducted please get in touch with your local rep. That is has been so difficult to implement highlights that our employer should not have applied such a draconian and punitive policy, deducting far in excess of the hours required. It also demonstrates the ongoing inability of the ERP and Finance to deliver the most basic of functionality.

For those who have been deducted we have a local hardship fund to top up payments from the national fighting fund. If you need to claim, please do.

There is also scope for legal action to recover wages on the basis that they have been deducted unfairly. UCU have circulated further information on the legal action that can be taken to challenge unfair MAB deductions and claims have already started at other branches. Members affected are asked to use this proforma UCU – ASOS/MAB – Questionnaire (member login required).

Strike days

Our employers have been notified of 5 full days of strike action to take place between 25 and 29 September 2023.

We deserve a fair wage, secure employment, and an end to pay gaps. Our members have shown great resilience, perseverance, and courage throughout this dispute. It is bitterly disappointing that UCEA has decided to sit this out regardless of the consequences for staff, students, and academic standards. We should not let the employers get away with this.

A ballot to secure a fresh mandate to continue the dispute and take the fight to the employer will follow.

 

Making Plans for Nigel

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This handsome chap is Nigel. After a hard life of racing Nigel was fortunate enough to be rescued and rehomed. Nigel is now enjoying a happy retirement. We would all like the same too

In 2018 our employers tried to end our guaranteed pension in favour of a defined contribution scheme where our retirement income would depend on the performance of investments instead of contributions. We fought to stop this.

In 2020 at the height of the market crash USS then conducted a valuation which they used to claim that contributions would need to rise substantially to maintain our benefits in retirement. Cuts applied between 2011 and 2019 had already reduced a typical retirement pot by £240,000.

Changes were forced through which cut the value of guaranteed income in retirement by up to 35% for an estimated 196,000 staff. Our employers have also imposed a cap on inflation protection of 2.5%. The latest 12-month consumer price index is currently 10.1%. The value of our pensions has been doubly impacted and once again we found ourselves having to take action to defend against proposals aimed at destroying the USS pension scheme.

In the Joint Statements agreed for calling off the Assessment and Marking Boycott last summer, the senior leadership team at Heriot-Watt agreed that the return of improved benefits to staff is a priority and that governance reform is needed.

Progress has been made but the fight is not over. In a joint statement published on 17 March 2023 UUK tentatively agreed to prioritising the restoration of benefits back to pre-2022 levels, a moderately prudent and evidence-based approach to future valuations, and a review of scheme governance.

Negotiations have so far been described as constructive but at this point our pensions have not yet been restored. We need to secure a mandate for further strike action to ensure that these committments are delivered on.

Please vote Yes in the the re-ballot. If you have not received your ballot papers you can request replacements at https://yoursay.ucu.org.uk/s3/ucuRISING-ballotupdate until Sunday 26 March.

A big thank-you to Nigel and to all the staff and students who were also on the picket today.

 

Let’s stick together

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After all the excitement of the disruptive but ultimately empty offer by the employers last week it was back out onto the picket first thing this morning. It bears repeating that the offer was simply not good enough. While we welcome the positive signs on pension restoration we note that it remains a qualified commitment. On 4-Fights there has been little progress beyond agreeing the Terms of Reference which will frame the negotiations about casualisation, workload and the equality pay gap. The imposed final pay offer of around 5% for most falls well short of inflation and has already been emphatically rejected in an online poll.

So, for now, we must stick together and continue with the strike action, and vote YES in the re-ballot.

We will win these disputes by coming together, sticking together, striking together and voting together – Jo Grady, UCU General Secretary

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.

Strength and Solidarity

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A colourful picket today as we were joined by Prospect union members from British Geographical Survey. Prospect members at over 30 Civil and Public Service employer voted overwhelmingly in favour of industrial action to defend against pay cuts and job insecurity. It is the largest action in over a decade by members who have seen a real term reduction in income of over 25% in this time.

The protests over fair pay and a decent pension continued at the Mound afterwards in a joint rally with the Public and Commercial Services Union.

Dance-offs

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Last morning on the picket for this week and we finished with a dance-off between the Dinosaur of Solidarity and Daisy the dog. At the same time our national negotiators are involved in their own dance-off, negotiating with their counterparts from UCEA at ACAS.

At this early stage the rules and processes will be agreed before discussions on a deal can begin. If we hold fast we give our negotiators a much stronger hand in the bargaining process. We don’t want to strike but we need to strike to keep pressure on our employers so that an agreement can be reached.

Re-ballot

Negotiations can take a while, so it is essential that we re-ballot now to have a mandate for another 6 months of industrial action. The aim is to reach agreement but we need to be able to leverage the threat of continuing strikes and marking and assessment boycotts if we are to get the best deal.

Ballot papers will start to arrive from Wednesday 22 February and more information will follow in due course.

Vote Yes to continuing industrial action in the re-ballot and be in the room with your union.