Southampton UCU held its Annual General Meeting on 14th June 2023 and the following motions were proposed:
Motion in support of Ukraine
SUCU branch notes that 2023 Congress Motion 5:
- misrepresents Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, turning the focus away from the sole aggressor, Russia, and presenting a false moral equivalence between the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, and the defence of Ukraine by the Ukrainians;
- calls for the ending of military support for Ukraine, which, rather than leading to peace, would leave Ukraine at the mercy of continuing Russian aggression and long-term military occupation;
- includes an antisemitic dog-whistle, by selectively reporting Volodymyr Zelensky’s remarks on Israel without contextualisation or explanation;
- passed without any substantive consultation with Ukrainian people, and has since been condemned by many Ukrainians;
- has since been discussed as a ‘great initiative which should be welcomed’ by pro-war commentators on the programme Watch on Russian state media;
- is in irreconcilable conflict with the spirit and letter of 2023 Congress Motion 6, carried with a much larger majority, which explicitly recognises Ukraine’s right to self-determination and tasks the International Working Group with engaging in practical solidarity work with Ukrainian activists.
SUCU branch:
- strongly condemns and disassociates itself from Congress Motion 5;
- believes that the motion has brought the union into international disrepute;
- calls on the General Secretary to make a statement calling for the UK to continue to support Ukraine’s right to self-determination;
- calls on the General Secretary and NEC to urgently explore all options for overturning or repealing the motion, up to and including a special online congress;
- calls for the General Secretary and NEC to prioritise the fulfilment of Congress Motion 6 in the meantime, as outlined in Bijan Parsia’s NEC motion ‘Nothing About Ukraine without Ukraine’.
Voting outcome:
Yes: 52
No: 0
Abstain: 1
Motion carried.
Future Congress Arrangements
Branch recognises the considerable efforts undertaken by UCU staff and elected officers to try to make Congress 2023 an inclusive event. Despite these efforts, concern was expressed by delegates about the impact of speaking styles on other delegates. It also remains problematic for many prospective delegates to set aside up to five contiguous days of travel and debate in order to exercise their Branch’s democratic rights. Only around half of the delegate entitlements were taken up.
Furthermore, it is now difficult to justify the carbon (environmental) and financial costs of a large residential Congress , especially when it attracts so little positive national publicity in support of UCU’s causes.
Branch calls for future Congresses to be conducted hybrid or online only.
Voting outcome:
Yes: 45
No: 0
Abstain: 2
Motion carried.
Clarity Business Travel
Southampton UCU Branch notes:
- That Clarity Business Travel is now wholly owned by a Saudi Arabian company, Seera.
- That Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund (the ‘Public Investment Fund’), chaired by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, has agreed to purchase a substantial stake in Seera.
- That the Saudi Arabian dictatorship has a long history of appalling abuses of human rights, and that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has been accused of personal involvement in some of these, such as the murder of Jamal Khashoggi.
Branch believes:
- That business relationships with oppressive regimes with abysmal human rights should not be normalised.
- That the University of Southampton aspires to the highest ethical standards for itself, and that it should hold the business it works with to similarly high standards.
- That working with business owned by oppressive regimes is incompatible with the aims of the University’s Strategic Plan – Equality Diversity and Inclusion 2020-2025, which states that ‘[w]e all actively take steps to understand the impact of our own actions and behaviours’.
- That while Clarity Business Travel may initially have been an appropriate business partner for the University, following changes to its ownership, this is no longer the case.
Branch resolves:
- To call on the University to engage in negotiations with Southampton UCU on (1) bringing about the end of the University’s relationship with Clarity Business Travel as soon as is feasible, and (2) mitigating any damage caused in the meantime.
- To call on the University to engage in negotiations with Southampton UCU on the introduction of new ethical guidelines for future contractual relationships between the University and third parties.
- To inform UCU’s National Executive Committee of the passing of this motion.
- To call on the university to make alternative travel booking arrangements available for colleagues who feel that their data security would be prejudiced by sharing personally identifying information with Clarity and, potentially, its owners.
Voting outcome:
Yes: 48
No: 0
Abstain: 0
Motion carried.
Call for joint statement from VC and UCU branch of University of Southampton
Southampton UCU notes:
The VCs of Sussex, Cambridge and Queen’s University Belfast have written joint statements with their universities’ union branches calling on UCEA to return to the negotiating table.
Southampton UCU calls on:
The Vice Chancellor of the University of Southampton to sign a joint statement with SUCU below to call UCEA back to negotiations and end the Marking and Assessment Boycott in good faith.
Draft statement:
It is regrettable that the national pay and conditions dispute has reached a point whereby a marking and assessment boycott has been called. Very sadly, and as things stand, it is likely to have a significant impact on students at Southampton, and across the country.
This cohort of students have already been hit especially hard by the pandemic; now, many are facing the possibility that the completion of their degrees and their graduation may be delayed. The boycott also means that some international students may not be able to apply for post-study graduate visas on completion of their course. No-one wants students to suffer further, and we are deeply sympathetic to the strength of feeling in our student body. For many, including staff, this is a stressful and anxious time.
We jointly want this dispute to be resolved as quickly as possible and for students to have their exams marked on time. Any dispute plainly requires negotiation. The ACAS negotiations on pay and working conditions were interrupted earlier this year. It is regrettable that these talks ultimately failed to resolve the dispute. We therefore call for negotiations between UCEA and UCU to restart without preconditions to reach an agreed settlement. This needs to happen urgently, for the sake of our students, staff and members.
Voting outcome:
Yes: 43
No: 0
Abstain: 1
Motion carried.
Affordable and Equitable Industrial Action (IA)
[Motion for submission to the next Special Sector conference.]
Conference notes that
- In the 2022-23 pay dispute, UCU called more days of strike action than any other UK trade union
- UCU confirmed limited financial compensation for punitive deductions a month after the MAB commenced
- Lengthy, uncompensated or partially compensated IA disproportionately affects staff on part-time and fixed-term contracts, more likely to be women and ethnic minorities.
- The unsustainable cost of lengthy periods of IA creates a risk of disengagement among members
Conference resolves that
- UCU commits to conduct an affordability assessment before calls for IA, assessing the likely cost of proposed action to members and support available from the strike fund, and to circulate it to branches
- UCU commits to conduct an equalities impact assessment before calling IA and to plan mitigations against any disproportionate impacts on specific groups
- HEC must consider the outcomes of affordability and equalities assessments when calling IA
Voting outcome:
Yes: 40
No: 1
Abstain: 3
Motion carried.
Call for the University of Southampton to end marking mitigation and pressure on staff.
Southampton UCU notes:
- The University of Southampton has responded to the impact of the Marking and Assessment Boycott by expecting colleagues not participating in MAB and/or not in the union to take on significant extra marking. By adding to colleagues’ already excessive workloads at a particularly busy time of year, UoS is thereby exacerbating one of the central issues of the dispute.
- The University of Southampton is using mitigation procedures to graduate finalists whose marks records are incomplete due to the MAB by contravening the quality assurances and standards that the university has long claimed are integral to the value of a Southampton degree instead of calling on UCEA to end the MAB by returning to negotiations.
Southampton UCU believes that using mitigation procedures in this way, which allows for awarding degrees with missing marks and with Pass/Fail marks for dissertations, devalues a Southampton degree and potentially brings the university into disrepute.
We also call on the university to stop requiring staff to take on additional marking at this busy and pressurised time of year.
Voting outcome:
Yes: 42
No: 0
Abstain: 0
Motion carried.
Motion: MAB salary sharing
Southampton branch notes:
- that the financial impact of the marking and assessment boycott varies significantly according to job role, career stage and personal circumstance
- that the burden of the MAB is currently being carried by a small number of staff, who are therefore subject to undue pressure and are losing 50% of their pay for a sustained and indefinite period
- that all members will gain from any progress brought about by the MAB.
The branch calls on all members who are not participating, or who are unable to participate, to donate one day’s pay per month, or whatever they can afford, from now until the boycott ends, to the local fighting fund.
Voting outcome:
Yes: 37
No: 2
Abstain: 1
Motion carried.
Rejection of “Modernising the Governance”
The Branch notes that:
- Without either a vote at University Senate, or agreement from the campus trade unions, University Council sent a proposal to the Privy Council on 29th November 2022 to modify the University Charter and completely eliminate the University Statutes. This was approved by the King on 8th March 2023.
- At an eBallot in May 2023, 87% of voting UCU members rejected the Modernising the Governance proposals, in full knowledge that rejecting the proposals would lead to an industrial dispute if they were to be unilaterally imposed.
- At their meeting of 24th May 2023, Council noted that management had been unable to reach agreement with the campus trade unions on either the governance (Charter, Statutes, and Ordnances) or procedural aspects of the Modernising the Governance proposals, but proceeded to impose their implementation them without union agreement.
- Substantial points of disagreement with the proposals remain unresolved, including:
- The revised charter, ordinances and policies water down Academic Freedom protections, including by eliminating reference to the UNESCO Recommendation concerning the Status of Higher-Education Teaching Personnel; this is the internationally recognised definition of academic freedom.
- The revised policies substantially reduce Council’s effective oversight of matters relating to the dismissal of staff at levels 4-6, potentially including where multiple redundancies may substantially impact the work of an academic department or professional service unit.
- Throughout the process, Council members have not engaged directly with the Trade Unions.
This Branch resolves to ballot our members to enter a formal dispute over Council’s imposition of the Modernising the Governance proposals.
Voting outcome:
Yes: 25
No: 0
Abstain: 1
Motion carried.
Freedom of Speech at the University of Southampton
Branch notes with concern:
- An incident in October 2022 at which a student presentation in building 54 about Taiwan was disrupted.
- An apparent physical attack last Sunday afternoon on Burgess Road against young people who had been promoting civil liberties in Hong Kong.
Branch calls upon the University, SUSU, and the Confucius Institute to agree a joint statement calling for calm and reasserting the right of free political expression by all members of the University.
Voting outcome:
Yes: 36
No: 0
Abstain: 0
Motion carried.