Southampton UCU Rotating Header Image

April, 2013:

UCU member survey

Colleagues,

Southampton UCU has put together a staff survey, which you can find at the link below:

isurvey.soton.ac.uk/7174

This survey is intended to gauge your experience as an employee at the University of Southampton, and is a means for you to share your views with us.  The survey covers a number of different issues and includes several open-ended comment sections so that you may address anything we may have omitted.  We will use the results to inform our future branch activities, identify priority areas for negotiation, and pinpoint any additional issues that should be raised with the University.

The survey itself will only take a few minutes for you to complete, so please have your say!  Be sure to make use of the open comment sections to address any additional issues you would like to see raised and to share your positive comments or experiences as well.

Also, if you think that your non-UCU colleagues at Southampton would wish to participate in this survey please feel free to forward this email on to them.

The survey will close on Friday 3 May.  Once the data analysis is completed we will share results with you via email and this blog, followed by a more detailed summary at our Annual General Meeting in June.

General Meeting – 24 April 2013

Southampton UCU are holding their next General Meeting on Wednesday 24 April at 1pm in room 58/1007 Lecture room C, Highfield campus.

The topic of the meeting will be “Stress: The Most Important Health & Safety Issue”.  We all know that stress is a huge cause of workplace absenteeism, ill health, and shortened life spans – but what can we do about it?

Our own Denis Nicole, a UCU Health and Safety Representative, will be on hand to share with you the latest information on workplace stress, how it affects our sector, and how we can work to protect ourselves and our colleagues from its negative effects.

We will also have information for you regarding University services that can help you to manage stress, from workshops to private counselling services, as well as information from Recourse, the UCU-funded helpline for higher education professionals.

Our branch is also involved in joint work with the University on reducing levels of workplace stress, and your input and feedback will be very valuable as these discussions progress.

So please come along and join the discussion.  Workplace stress is one of the greatest challenges facing the higher education workforce today – and the more we can address the problem at its core, the healthier we will all be!

——-

Eric Silverman

Southampton UCU President