As members will be aware, we held a General Meeting this lunchtime to update the membership on local matters, and to discuss the USS valuation and the potential for a national dispute.  The President’s report highlighted the current position of the University after the results of the TEF and the NSS, citing some sadly prophetic words from national UCU’s own briefing on TEF, released in late June. We also briefed on progress and developments regarding our local priorities, set at our Strategy Day: appraisals, MEQs, consultations, and settlement agreements.

Our invited speaker Chris Mason, UCU Pensions official, and our own Denis Nicole, who sits on UCU’s National Executive Committee, helped shed light on some of the more detailed and contentious issues surrounding the pensions valuation, and there was a lively discussion about what the branch felt was important to understand about pensions, what strike action might mean, and what kind of strike action we felt able to support.

Thanks for a well-attended meeting!

Two draft motions for the special conference and meeting to be held in Manchester on 9 November 2017 were submitted to the GM for approval.  The discussion did much to clarify what matters to members of the branch, and helped everyone understand better the issues at stake.  It was to the credit of the members attending that this respectful and productive debate resulted in amendments that were unanimously approved.  They are reproduced below.

We are still looking for a third delegate to attend the 9 November events on our behalf – it is essential that we are well represented, as if we do not use our representation to its maximum benefit, we may end up with a call to action that does not reflect well our priorities here.  If you are willing to represent us (we will pay your expenses!) please get in touch with the branch via email, or on 023 80592364 as soon as you can.

Many thanks!

*****

Motion for Special HE Sector conference to determine national UCU industrial strategy

Motion on industrial action to protect pension rights

Conference notes

1. That the willingness to take industrial action is necessary to defend USS pensions.
2. That a marking boycott is not an effective threat in many institutions because of the increasingly casualised workforce, and a boycott’s disproportionate burden on a subset of the full membership.

Conference believes

1. That well-supported work-to-contract and full strike action are the only effective means of delivering a meaningful national action.

Conference resolves

1. To ballot for industrial action with strike action plus work-to-contract not before January 2018; with escalating strike action as necessary.
2. To increase the quality and quantity of advice to branches on effective work-to-contract strategies.
3. To escalate the political campaign to win the argument for not changing the pension scheme.

Motion for meeting of pre-92 USS branches to determine a response to proposals in respect of USS:

Motion to resist ideological interference in USS proposals

Conference believes that

1. Predicting a possible future unsustainable deficit via a disputed methodology has provided an ideological justification for the privatisation of collective Defined Benefit schemes and movement into individual Defined Contribution schemes.
2. The recklessly prudent change in investment strategy to ‘manage risk’ and the Pension Regulator’s recent re-evaluation of the covenant are ideologically driven rather than rooted in reality.

Conference resolves

1. To state in all UCU literature that we insist that employees should not pay for this constructed deficit, either in increased contributions or in reduced benefits.
2. To encourage the USS JNC to resist inappropriate intervention from the Pension Regulator.
3. To refuse to accept detrimental changes to the USS pension scheme by identifying viable solutions which allow retention of secure benefits for members.