Campaign Meeting
Thursday 30th April
1-2pm in TB10
Open meeting – all staff and students welcome. You do not need to be a member of a union to attend.
Category Archives: Uncategorized
BBC Radio Surrey debate
Adam Lincoln, regional UCU representative debates Paul Stephenson about the current dispute over redundancies at Surrey from 5.30pm on BBC Radio Surrey Drive programme on 17th April. Click on the link above to listen to the programme.
Surrey management threatens 100 redundancies
The Vice Chancellor has launched an Operational Review threatening 100 job losses across the university. The proposals include the restructuring of both academic and administrative departments, with many colleagues forced to compete with each other for jobs in the new structure.
It is important that we support each other and work together to protect our livelihoods and working conditions. There are a number of things that we can do collectively as a union, in addition to providing support for members at risk of redundancy.
Our branch will need to decide together what action we plan to take in response to these proposals.
Come to our branch meeting on Wednesday 25th March, 12-1pm, 19 AC 03, to discuss and vote on our strategy.
Information about the Operational Review can be found on SurreyNet. The consultation period for the proposals ends on 8th May, but we will need to act much faster than this to make our voices heard.
We are much stronger if we act together. Even if your job is not currently at risk, please get involved now to support your colleagues and protect our university from further cuts. After recent announcements in relation to teaching allocation, it is clear that job losses will mean much higher teaching workloads for staff that remain at Surrey.
In addition to the branch meeting next week, there are also meetings taking place in departments particularly threatened by the proposals. Contact your departmental or faculty representative to get involved.
Do you earn over £100,000?
47 employees at Surrey earn between £100,000 and £399,999.
See the full UCU report.
Professor Sir Christopher Snowden survives on £392,000 salary.
The Vice-Chancellor of Surrey, Chris Snowden, gets a salary of£392,000.
In 2013-2014 he got a 4.3% increase.
His salary is 8.5 times as large as the average staff salary at Surrey.
According to the UCU report compiled from FOI requests, he spent just under £7000 on Business Class flights in the year covered by the report.
Struggle for top research grades fuels bullying among university staff
From the Guardian:
The fevered build up to this month’s university research audit has exposed academics to an atmosphere of competitiveness and bullying, according to a survey by the Guardian’s higher education network.
More than half of UK university staff questioned by the network said recent policy changes such as the introduction of the research excellence framework – a new process for measuring the quality of academic research – had fuelled campus bullying.
The survey questioned over 1,300 university staff who have experienced bullying at work, half of which are based at UK institutions. The research did not attempt to measure the scale of bullying, but asked respondents about its causes and how well universities deal with such behaviour.
Death by performance review
Imperial College London is to examine its staff policies after the death of an academic who was believed to have been placed under a performance review.
Stefan Grimm, professor of toxicology in the Faculty of Medicine at Imperial, was found dead in Northwood, Middlesex, in September. An inquest was opened and adjourned at the West London District Coroner’s Court on 8 October.
Speaking to Times Higher Education on condition of anonymity, two academics who knew Professor Grimm, who was 51, said that he had complained of being placed under undue pressure by the university in the months leading up to his death, and that he had been placed on performance review.
Academia for women
Academia for women: short maternity leave, few part-time roles and lower pay
Equality Challenge Unit figures reveal a dismal picture for female academics with the continued dominance of men in the sector.
More on this from the Guardian at http://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/nov/18/academia-for-women-short-maternity-leave
Six myths about how the unions are ruining Britain
The Daily Mail front page caught my eye yesterday: it announced that trade unions were now paying their members to go on strike. I confess to being almost impressed at that infernal organ’s ability to alchemise scandals out of the prosaic, and it got me thinking about the other myths that are commonly peddled about trade unions. Let’s have a look at six regulars, and give them a good old busting….
Article continues at: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/nov/13/five-myths-trade-unions-ruining-britain-daily-mail
How should workers respond to bullying and intimidation tactics? The law
How should workers respond to bullying and intimidation tactics used by employers during industrial action disputes? Two leading academics consider the current dispute in the university sector.
See also http://www.ier.org.uk/blog/pensions-dispute-bullying-tactics-violate-workers-human-rights