1) Professional Service Term
Next term Bristol UCU launches our first Professional Services term, dedicated to our PS members and staff.
PS UCU reps are planning a series of events and activities from April 19th to June 14th.
Boosting our PS recruitment; assessing the opportunity cost of frequent PS restructurings; securing a decent working environment for all PS staff: these are all on our PS Term agenda.
More details will follow, for example, on the launch event, on PS members’ testimonies of why they are UCU members, and on our spotlight on restructurings – are they worth the hassle and stress?
If you would like to help build the PS term, or join our PS planning committee, please email ucu-office@bristol.ac.uk
Join us in celebrating our Professional Services members across our PS Divisions, School and Faculty Offices. UCU is not for academic staff; it’s for University staff.
—
2) USS Update
‘USS is trying to spin the fundamentally flawed assumptions which its valuation of the pension scheme relies on as objective matters of fact. In doing so it risks endangering a healthy scheme’
For more on UCU and the General Secretary’s response, see:
https://www.ucu.org.uk/article/11437/UCU-response-to-USS-trustee-update
‘Problems with USS’s methods and assumptions have not been properly addressed despite widespread dissatisfaction among members and criticism from across the pensions industry and the higher education sector, including the universities of Oxford and Cambridge [and Bristol]’
Also: please sign our Bristol UCU Pension Rep’s letter calling on USS ‘to restore members’ trust’ and open up the assumptions and methods that underpin its current recklessly prudent valuation to public scrutiny:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfF-gmVzUprOzU3jHFz2m1k48CUqbUwqUKBHg5ahmhY2hP3Jg/viewform
**BREAKING**
‘UK university employers have requested a review of the 2020 #USS valuation, saying the scheme is now facing “unjustified and unnecessary” reform
https://twitter.com/JosephineCumbo/status/1369631616344207367
—
3) Gender Pay Gap: Collective Agreement – A Year On
It has been over a year since our ‘landmark deal’ [link], the University of Bristol Collective Agreement to Address the Gender Pay Gap:
https://bristolucu.wordpress.com/2020/01/20/gender-pay-gap-collective-agreement/
What’s the progress been? UCU reps are expecting an update from University Officers shortly.
—