1) Vote Yes, Vote Now – USS E-Ballot Please vote now and vote yes in the USS E-Ballot (‘Defend your pension: please vote now’, 25th September; ‘Vote in the USS consultative e-ballot’, 20th September) For more information about cuts to USS pension holders’ benefits, please see the Bristol UCU blog post ‘Your Pensions Under Attack. […]
Category: Newsflash
1. Your Pension is under attack Vote Now, Vote Yes. To vote in the e-ballot, you will need to go to either of two emails sent by our General Secretary Sally Hunt: One was sent on Monday, 25th September (‘Defend your pension: please vote now’) The other, on Wednesday, 20th September (‘Vote in the USS consultative e-ballot’) […]
1) PhDs Go Free If you’re a PhD student and are teaching, it is now free to join University of Bristol UCU. All part of ‘Transforming UCU’: “Effective from 1 October 2017, if you are a PhD teaching in HE…UCU will make your union membership free” Now no financial reason for PhD students teaching at […]
1) UniForum In a previous Newsflash, 5th July, we highlighted a number of issues and concerns which Bristol UCU had with the current UniForum benchmarking programme. This reflected a national UCU briefing: http://bristolucu.blogs.bristol.ac.uk/files/2017/07/UCUBANHE9-Uniforum-UCU-Briefing.pdf Bristol UCU would also like to emphasise the involvement of the campus trade unions in the roll-out of UniForum at Bristol. UCU […]
1) 2-Days A Week Unpaid As well as making some timely comments about the avarice of the vice chancellor caste, former Education minister Baron Andrew Adonis has recently made some crackpot comments regarding academic workload. For the record, UCU’s 2016 Workload Survey found HE staff work ‘an average of more than two days unpaid leave’. […]
1) Restructurings – Finance Services & Timetabling and Examinations Office Restructurings within Finance Services and Timetabling and the Examinations Office were announced at the end of last week. Both have 6-week consultation periods. The proposed Finance Services model has been developed by our new Chief Financial Officer. It proposes a much strengthened senior leadership team […]
1) Promotion and Progression – Update Thank you to everyone who attended our progression and promotion focus groups last week. Pathway 1 and 2 raised a number of important points such as: the importance of ‘progress to progression’ being an integral part of Pathway 1 annual staff review. the fundamental misunderstanding of risk that lurks […]
1) Last Chance to Register – Pathway 1 Promotion and Progression Focus Group The final of 3 UCU Promotion and Progression Focus Groups – for Pathway 1 academic staff – is tomorrow (Thursday, 15th June), 1pm-2pm, in G4/5, 10 Woodland Road, Arts Complex. Last chance to register: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/pathway-1-promotion-and-progression-ucu-focus-group-tickets-34502561089 NB Bristol UCU branch officers have written […]
1) UCU Congress Bristol UCU delegates – Tracey Hooper, James Thompson and Jamie Melrose – went to UCU Congress in Brighton last weekend. What did Congress decide? What was discussed? What is now UCU policy as regards pay, union mergers and many other issues? Please see ‘Brighton Rocks: Bristol UCU Congress Report 2017’ for our […]
1) Pay – Update At UCU Congress this weekend, delegates will be asked to vote on the following proposal: should UCU run a national consultative ballot, asking members whether they accept or reject the final pay offer? UCU’s Higher Education Committee will then decide to accept or reject on the basis of the ballot result. […]