UCU has released further guidance to branches concerning negotiations and consultation with employers to ensure Covid-19 risk assessments are reviewed urgently and to ensure appropriate preventative and protective measures are in place. UCU’s position remains that the majority of teaching should be online unless risk assessments demonstrate that adequate control measures are in place to ensure face-to-face teaching can be undertaken with a low risk of Covid-19 transmission. In any event it is our view that a mix of face-to-face and remote delivery will be necessary as a minimum control measure.

In addition to the guidance on collective approaches to address Covid-19 health and safety concerns, we realise that individual members may also have particular concerns about the safety of a return to on site work and face-to-face teaching in light of their particular individual circumstances. We have also produced a series of template letters for use by members who reasonably believe that a request or demand that they return to on site working would place them in serious danger from Covid-19, in order to raise their concerns directly with their manager.

The letters are drafted for use by members in different circumstances; the relevant template will need to be tailored to the circumstances of an individual member and branches may need to support members to assist them in completing their letter.

There are two sets of templates – one for members working in higher education and one for members working in further education. For each sector there are nine template letters for use by members in the following categories:

-an employee who is clinically vulnerable or extremely vulnerable;
-an employee from a BAME background
-an employee with anxiety/depression related condition
-an older employee
-a pregnant woman employee from a BAME background
-a pregnant woman from a white background
-an employee with no particular relevant characteristics
-an employee with no particular relevant characteristics but with vulnerable household member(s)
-disabled staff at increased risk.

Each letter covers issues relevant to the circumstances/characteristics of the employee and includes reference to the employer risk assessment (or lack of one) to raise concerns with the member’s manager.

To be most effective the letters should include reference to the employer’s risk assessment, to highlight deficiencies in that and the reasons why the member considers it to be unsafe to return to onsite working in the current circumstances, until deficiencies have been removed and adequate control measures implemented

Members may not have seen the employer risk assessment and this element of their letter is likely to be the one that they will need assistance with. The key point for branch reps who are supporting members with drafting a letter is to encourage the member to identify specific factors that concern them in terms of risks to their safety, and to link these to elements of the risk assessment (e.g. If an employer’s risk assessment specifies that in-person interaction in enclosed indoor spaces should be limited, and yet a member is being told that their timetable involves hours of face-to-face teaching in rooms without ventilation or social distancing measures, then these elements should be highlighted in the letter).

When completed, member’s letters should be sent to their line manager, copied to their local branch for information.

Please log into the UCU website to download the template letters here:

22.06.2020

Angela Richardson MP

House of Commons

London

SW1A 0AA

Dear Angela Richardson,

We are writing on behalf of staff and students working within University of Surrey to ask for your help in ensuring that the Government protects post-16 education and provides much-needed stability for staff and students in the face of the current Covid-19 crisis. Specifically, we would like to ask that you engage with the Secretary of State for Education and the Treasury to ensure that financial support is available to both higher- and further-education providers, and to clarify the Government’s plans to strengthen the UK’s post-16 education sectors following Conservative commitments in the 2019 manifesto.

At the University, we’re grateful to be a large part of the Guildford community; of the 77,729 voters in Guildford, it is estimated that 10,183 are students in further and higher education, and approximately 4,300 staff work in post-16 education within this constituency.

We believe that the post-16 education sector is a critical part of the social and economic fabric of the UK and will be crucial to our country’s recovery from the current crisis. UUK states that, in 2014-15 (the most recently available data), UK Universities contributed £95 billion gross output and supported almost 944,000 jobs.

In the early days of the pandemic, staff in the sector responded magnificently and continue to do so today. Unsurprisingly, though, the crisis is still causing huge uncertainty. Without urgent action from the Government, we risk losing vital educational capacity just when it will be needed most. The country cannot afford to push tens of thousands of teachers, researchers, and education professionals into unemployment at a time when we will need education to be a key driver of recovery.

The education unions have already called on government to take action and whilst there appears to have been recognition in Westminster of the importance of further and higher education, the very limited proposals and actions taken so far have been inadequate to the challenges the sector faces and to the crucial task of maintaining the confidence of students and staff: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-support-package-for-universities-and-students

The inadequacy of the government package is illustrated by the report by London Economics, which highlighted a potential £2.5bn loss of income from tuition fees and teaching grants for UK universities, an estimated loss of 30,000 sector jobs, with a further 32,000 jobs threatened throughout the wider economy. This analysis has been confirmed by the recent large scale study of international students’ intentions undertaken by the British Council. In the worst case scenario, the Council predicts losses to the sector of around £2bn from international students alone.

The sector needs a clear and coherent plan aimed at retaining capacity and maximising the positive impact that further and higher education can make. As part of a key community-based institution within your constituency, we would be grateful if you could, on our behalf, urge both the Secretary of State for Education and Treasury to take more action to protect these important sectors.

We look forward to hearing from you.

Yours sincerely,

University of Surrey Students Union Committee

Surrey UCU Committee

Surrey UNISON Committee

Surrey Unite Committee

6th March 2020

Dear Vice-Chancellor,

Open letter from the Surrey UCU Committee regarding the USS Pension and the ‘Four Fights’ [Pay and Equality] disputes.

We are writing to you with a formal request for information. We believe that the present position of University of Surrey, in relation to the two national disputes, should be communicated as transparently as possible.

As you will be aware, the employer representatives have returned to national negotiations with UCU but with the caveat at present that they do not have a mandate from enough Vice-Chancellors to make improved offers. This is particularly relevant to the pay element of the Four Fights dispute, and the UCU position that the employers should cover member contributions increases in the USS dispute.

Please could you answer the following questions:

(1) How did this University respond in the recent USS consultation?

a) Did this University agree to increase contributions by 1%?
b) Did this University agree to increase its share by 0.5%?
c) Or was the University one of the 84% which are still unwilling to take on any more contributions?

(2) If the University is unwilling to pay RPI +3%, what improvements to the headline pay offer of 1.8% is it willing to make, in order to reverse over a decade of real terms pay cuts?

(3) Can the University commit to providing a workload model based in hours to all of your staff? If not, why not?

(4) Given that over a decade of data – gathered by, among others, yourselves – has repeatedly shown a systemic differential in pay, based on gender & ethnicity, is the University willing to commit to developing a concrete action plan to close these equalities pay gaps?

(5) Is the University willing to reduce the number of fixed term contracts it currently uses? What targets about when and how this will occur will you/the University set?

(6) We do not as yet have a formal agreement governing the contractual conditions of hourly-paid staff. What targets about when and how this will occur will you/the University set?

(7) Do you have a formal change management policy that involves meaningful consultation before announcing redundancies, either voluntary or compulsory? Are you willing to negotiate a redundancy avoidance agreement?

(8) Is there a staff or student representative on your remuneration committee that considers the salary of senior management including the vice-chancellor? Do you attend the meetings where your pay is established? If so, why?

We look forward to your responses, which we formally request to communicate to Surrey UCU Members and our UCU colleagues more widely.

Thank you

Yours sincerely

Surrey UCU Committee

This form closes Tuesday 21st January at 12:00:

https://yoursay.ucu.org.uk/s3/GTVO-member-form-HE-reballots-Dec-2019-Jan-2020

In July we ran a Branch survey asking you the following questions:

1, In light of recent events, what institutional changes or action do you think would restore the confidence of staff and students in the senior university management?

2, Please suggest some constructive, positive proposals for the University of Surrey that engage with the challenges that HE faces at present

3, What is your vision for the University of Surrey?

4, What is your ‘vision’ of a HE institution?

Please click below to view our pdf member report back.

190909 Surrey UCU ‘Vision’ in HE

On 22 March 2019 the three campus trade unions (Unite, UNISON and UCU) held an open meeting for all staff. The level of attendance was unprecedented, with standing room only in the lecture theatre.

The issues raised included:

• The lack of detailed data to justify the espoused need for saving £15M,
• The dubious use of uncertainties such as Brexit and the Augar review in order to justify this knee-jerk reaction,
• The terminology used which designates staff as a cost and not as an asset,
• A rush forward to implement changes with no apparent plan or appropriate process (e.g. equality analysis),
• The threatening of course closures without due process, and
• The serious implications for staff well-being, including stress and workload concerns as a result of staff reductions.

At this meeting, there was a call from the floor for an all-staff vote of no confidence, to be facilitated by the trade unions. Unite, UNISON and UCU agreed that this action could be considered by the trade unions. USSU informed staff that they are holding a referendum for students in a vote of no confidence in the VC, senior management team and governing bodies in May.

Based on the indicative figures presented to the unions in April, it is clear that over 80% of the £15m savings target that University of Surrey has set itself could be achieved as a result of the recruitment freeze and approved EVS applications. The unions raised questions as to ‘Phase 2’ and what it will encompass, but were not presented with a clear direction for the ongoing ‘Continuous Improvement Programme’.

As a result, in order to protect staff, the three campus trade unions subsequently wrote to Professor Lu requesting that the University rule out compulsory redundancies of staff until at least 31 July 2020, to allow time for a period of reflection and to alleviate the spectre of job insecurity.

This reassurance has not been provided. In the reply, Professor Lu wrote only that: ‘The outcome of our recent Enhanced Voluntary Severance scheme, together with other measures we have taken, means that in all likelihood we will not be looking at wide-ranging compulsory redundancies across the University as part of the Continuous Improvement Programme…….I cannot categorically rule out the need for local action involving redundancies in some areas’.

Further outsourcing of University services also remains a concern for staff and formal requests have not produced categorical assurances: Professor Lu has stated ‘I do not envisage any significant changes here in the foreseeable future’.

Therefore we invite you to participate in this all-staff vote of no confidence.

Please note your participation will be kept completely anonymous from the University (payroll numbers are requested to verify that staff members have only voted once).

This vote will close at 12pm on Friday 17 May 2019.

Please share the voting link with other staff members so that they also get their say: https://yoursay.ucu.org.uk/s3/surreynoconfidence