We held a General Meeting at 1-2pm on Thursday 15th May 2025. The Branch President gave a brief local update, which included welcoming the new Branch Administrator and Organiser, Laura O’Brien, summarising the information shared with us so far about the NousCubane benchmarking exercise the University recently undertook, and reporting on the progress of negotiations in our two local disputes. We then moved on to the formal business outlined below.

Review of the Academic Year

The University is consulting on possible changes to the academic year (details here). We discussed the various proposals, and took an informal indicative vote, which revealed that a majority of members present favoured Option 2b. As we discussed in the meeting, the branch will hold a formal e-consultation of members, to ensure that as many as possible have a say. Note that the results of this e-consultation will supersede the informal indicative vote held in today’s meeting, which was intended as a ‘backup’ in case the e-consultation could not be launched in time.

UPDATE: The e-consultation has now launched and will remain open until 12 noon on Wednesday 21st May – check your MyUCU-registered contact email for a message from ‘yoursay@ucu.org.uk’. In this consultation, you will be asked to rate the three options (1, 2a and 2b) in order of preference, from 1, for your preferred option, to 3, for your least preferred option.

Policies and Procedures

The University is intending to ask the branch to ratify three policies and procedures at the forthcoming JJNC and UCU JNC meetings on 22nd May. Members instructed the branch executive as follows:

• To approve the University’s proposed new Volunteering Leave Policy (for 35, against 0, abstain 4).
• To approve the University’s proposed new Student Complaints and Employee Disciplinary Interaction Process (for 33, against 0, abstain 7). This process, and associated changes to Regulations Governing Student Complaints, directly responds to concerns raised by the branch – see Motion 2 from our GM of 19th November 2024).
• To approve the University’s revised Code of Practice on Freedom of Speech and Academic Freedom (for 11, against 2, abstain 25).

2025 UCU Congress/Sector Conference Motions

We discussed the Second Report of the Congress Business Committee, which contains motions that are expected to be voted on at UCU Congress/Sector Conference, 24th-26th May 2025. The Executive Committee highlighted Motions 52 (p. 31), 72 (p. 41), HE6 (p. 66) and HE14 (p. 70) as ones that members may have views on. If you have opinions on any motion that you would like to share with the voting delegates who will be representing us at Congress, please send them to ucu@soton.ac.uk by no later than 9am on 22nd May, so that we have time to pass them on.

Motions

The following motion was overwhelmingly passed by members.

Motion: Southampton UCU’s Commitment to Trans Rights

The branch notes:

• That the UK Supreme Court ruling from 16 April declares sex in the Equality Act 2010 refers to sex assigned at birth.
• That the Equality and Human Rights Commission issued guidance on 25 April that states people must use single-sex spaces according to sex assigned at birth, reflecting earlier comments by the Secretary of State for Education and Minister for Women and Equalities, Bridget Phillipson.
• That the EHRC guidance has no provision for intersex people, and is worded such that trans people could be excluded from single-sex facilities altogether.

The branch believes that the interim guidance:

• Undermines the basic human rights and dignity of trans, intersex, non-binary and gender non-conforming staff and students, including their right to privacy and to be free of harassment and discrimination.
• Contradicts current policy and practice at most post-16 institutions, including UoS, which allow all staff and students to use the gendered spaces appropriate to them (see the branch-ratified Inclusion and Respectful Behaviour policy).
• Encourages enforcement that would amount to harassment, given that a person’s sex assigned at birth and/or transition status are confidential medical information.
• Also threatens dignity at work for cis people, particularly cis women, due to its reliance on subjective assessments of gender presentation.

The branch resolves to:

• Call on the University of Southampton to maintain its existing, trans-inclusive Inclusion and Respectful Behaviour policy and to reiterate this policy to all staff and students.
• Ensure that we are consulted on any changes to policy, in line with our recognition agreement.
• Call on members to vote against ratifying any changes to policy that might weaken or dilute trans people’s right to use single-sex spaces that align with their gender identity.

For: 31
Against: 2
Abstain: 4

Motion carried.