Bristol UCU Newsflash is about to take a Summer break, but before ‘Flash goes on leave, a brief reminder of where UCU matters currently stand and what’s on the branch agenda when ‘Flash’ returns in the Autumn.
We are balloting members over pay and pensions from Monday, 9th September. School, Department and Professional Service reps met on Monday to discuss the dispute and to plan our Get The Vote Out campaign. It will be all hands to the pump come September. Volunteers welcome; your branch strike committee needs you! Email ucu-office@bristol.ac.uk.
We also have our three branch priorities – closing the Gender Pay Gap, our Anti-Casualisation Claim and Workloads. On the pay gap, members will have seen the message from the President last week with the latest branch position [link]. Branch negotiators acknowledge the positive steps made by the University, as detailed by the Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Provost in her recent blog post [link], but continue to press for substantive structural change.
We continue to make progress on our Anti-Casualisation Claim, with branch reps serving on the University Precarious Contracts Working Group, and look forward to re-launching our ‘Humans. Not Resources’ campaign this summer.
As for workloads, branch negotiators will be recommending to our Executive Committee the revised University of Bristol and Bristol UCU Workload Agreement [link] as well as the accompanying Workload Allocation Principles. Branch reps will also be meeting the University to discuss timetabling, online marking and turnaround times, following the excessive workload complaints recently raised by branch reps and members.
Enjoy the next few months and here’s to a busy few months on Newsflash’s return.