Author Archives: amanda

Reasons to vote YES in the HE ballots – Gender Pay Gap

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University comms recently announced it was one of only 20 Universities to receive an Athena SWAN Silver award for their commitment to gender equality. This news will have stirred up mixed-feelings for many of our members. Of course, as an exec, we want to recognise the work (and good-will) that was integral to getting this award. We know that many of our brilliant members play key roles in equality work across the institution. Yet many of our members will see this announcement and feel frustrated, questioning how this supposed commitment to gender equality has failed to have an impact on their daily working lives – if we’re one of the few Silver awards, then what must other institutions be like? Others will be sceptical; the previous Athena SWAN award contained a significant number of actions that were never actioned. Our institution over-promised and under-delivered. Meanwhile, our significant gender pay gap remains pretty much the same, last reported in 2019 as 20.4%.

 

Many people we have spoken to are shocked by the gender pay gap figure for the University of Southampton, and the fact the institution is above the national average for HE. Some people have even presumed that it must be that University management simply doesn’t realise that the figures are so bad (and now that they do know, they will surely tackle it). Yet this trust in senior management to put things right is misguided. After some initial progress, our pay gap has plateaued. Your UCU officers take part in the annual equal pay review, where we’ve seen year upon year of monitoring without any meaningful action taking place. One previous internal equal pay report from the University even had the audacity to suggest that we weren’t making any progress closing the gender pay gap because we have “exhausted female talent pools for promotion” (Equal Pay Review 2017 p.13). Or to put it another way, the pay gap exists because there’s not enough ‘female talent’ at our institution to promote.

 

 

 

 

Year after year the gender pay gap remains at around 20%. Yet this is unsurprising given that management still fails to fully value the contributions that female staff disproportionately make to our institution (care work, collegiality, holding things together—often at the expense of our own career trajectories). The gender pay gap is about structural failures, but often it is treated as if it is solely cultural, an issue that it can be fixed by EDI training and learning about unconscious bias. Other fixes for the gender pay gap position women as the problem: they need to learn how to interview better, be more assertive, apply for promotions or increments. Yet the gender pay gap is not about women not knowing how to ‘sell themselves’ at interview, or about them not understanding what is needed to move quickly through the pay spine. The gender pay gap is more than this. It is a result of structural and policy failures.

 

One such failure is our institution’s policies around maternity and parental leave. Women with children are the most likely to see their carer progression stalled, because institutional support in this area is insufficient. Your local branch has been in discussions about maternity / parental leave for a significant number of years. We’ve heard many promises yet seen little action. Progress is so slow that it feels like work on this has ground to a standstill. Yet, week after week, your local branch handles case work dealing with the fallout from these policy failures: women who are at breaking point, anxious, undervalued, struggling with no automatic cover for their work while they are on maternity. UCU want our University management team to guarantee a central automatic fund to cover maternity – a simple scheme that many other institutions already have in place.

 

There’s also the significant issue of a lack of support for those returning to work after maternity. In part, the lack of clear cover for maternity means many people return and have to play catch-up with the work they have missed. Spiralling workloads, hiring freezes, and the pandemic all compound to make returning after maternity increasingly difficult, with many returners struggling to stay afloat. Other institutions offer periods of study leave on return from maternity, so staff can reboot their research, or specific training for line managers on how to support returners. We offer nothing. University management have failed to provide central financial support to help make some of the material changes that would actively support women’s careers.

 

The pandemic has highlighted how pressing these issues are, as women have become even more disproportionately burdened by care work and school closures. Parents of young children are at breaking point. The impact the pandemic will have on women’s career progression at our institution will be stark. Years of inaction on this from University management needs to end. We need to see action rather than words. Your local branch wants management not just to monitor pay gaps every year, but to set a clear target as to when these gaps will be eradicated, and a meaningful action plan to get us there. We need a plan that involves actual financial commitment and policy changes, not just performative words proudly pronouncing institutional commitment to gender equality.

 

The gender pay gap is a key part of the four fights dispute on which you are currently being balloted. If you want your local branch to have a strong hand to negotiate on this issue, then vote yes for strike action, and yes for action short of strike. A mandate for strike action is vital, on both a national and local level, for negotiating on these issues.

 

USS – SUCU clarifies VC’s claim relating to UCU’s alternative proposals

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SUCU believes that this claim made by Mark E. Smith in his response to us is misleading.

The letter states: ‘In addition, the University notes its disappointment that UCU has not been able to advance a formal, costed solution during the extensive valuation process to date, that it comes at the eleventh hour and is still not yet a formally tabled proposal at the JNC.’

The facts are that USS-costed proposals have been formally tabled for the JNC meeting this Friday the 11th of February (tomorrow), which was the date on the USS grid for the tabling of such proposals.

These proposals were not tabled earlier because UUK had declared that they would not negotiate with UCU over proposals until after the close of the USS consultation on the 17th of January. Moreover, UCU sought confirmation of strength of member consultation support for its approach, involving the paying of higher contributions to preserve current benefits. UCU received reports on the consultation responses on the 21st and 24th of January. These responses revealed strong support for our proposals. Having received this confirmation, UCU swiftly publicised the proposals on the 26th of January.

Since then, employers have simply stalled in unprincipled fashion. Although they were aware of the indicative USS costings on which our proposals were based, they demanded formalisation (which is a very complicated procedure) of these costings from USS as a condition of sending UCU’s proposals out for consultation. This in spite of the fact that they sent their own revised proposals out for employer consultation before they received formal confirmation from USS of the 0.2% costing.

They could and should have sent UCU’s proposals out for consultation when they received them on the 26th of January, just as they sent their own proposals out for employer consultation before they had received formal confirmation of costings.

UUK has today acknowledged that UCU’s proposals meet the higher standard they set for them than for their own proposals, and that they will be launching a consultation on them from early next week. It is not clear why consultation cannot start today.

The response from VCs on this matter, including the letter from Mark E Smith is deeply disingenuous, and appears to categorise proposals from the employer side in a very different way. We therefore ask that USS members inform themselves fully of the facts rather than relying on communications from the employer.

Follow: Mike Ostsuka @MikeOtsuka, Sam Marsh @Sam_Marsh101 and Jackie Grant via @sussexucu

(With grateful thanks to Mike Otsuka for his input)

 

 

Further communications with management about in-person exams…….continued

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We continue to push management on their unsatisfactory responses to our concerns about in-person examinations.  Our recent email resulted in the below letter from Wendy Appleby (VP Operations) – yet another disappointing response to our valid concerns.

 

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Further communications with senior management about in-person examinations

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Following our recent email to management raising our continued concerns about returning to campus and in particular in-person examinations, we received an unsatisfactory reply prompting a further email from the branch:

Sent: 13 January 2022 11:23
To: Vice-Chancellor <vice-chancellor@soton.ac.uk>; Vice President (Operations) <Vice-PresidentOperations@soton.ac.uk>; Alex Neill <A.D.Neill@soton.ac.uk>
Cc: Cathy Day <Cathy.Day@soton.ac.uk>; ucu <ucu@soton.ac.uk>
Subject: UCU response to VP operations email re in-person exams

Dear Mark, Alex and Wendy,

We are writing again in response to developments regarding in-person exams which have occurred over the past few days and to urge the University once more to think again.

We thank Wendy Appleby for her response to our letter sent on 5th January formally requesting the University not to go ahead with large in-person exams because of the risks posed by the highly contagious Omicron variant. We are not satisfied with the reply, most of which repeats content from emails already sent to students and H&S officers and does not address our key concerns.

On Tuesday 11th, Alex Neill sent an email to students explaining the University’s rationale for continuing with in-person exams despite strong opposition from staff and students. UCU takes issue with a number of statements in that email:

1. ‘Rigorous risk assessments have been carried out, and we are only using venues that have sufficient space to allow for our COVID safety measures to be put in place’.

  • We believe it is not space that is the most important issue, but ventilation. H&S officers from all 3 campus unions have been asking for ventilation to be checked fully in all teaching spaces and we are still waiting. H&S officers are not confident that ventilation checks have been carried out with appropriate care and rigour.

2. Students have been told ‘If your ability to attend an in-person exam is affected by COVID – for example, because a positive test requires you to self-isolate – please use our special considerations process to notify your School’.

  • There are significant consequences for students with this approach, particularly those who have internships, summer jobs or postgraduate courses lined up. If they need to do referrals in the summer, these plans could be jeopardised and will certainly have to be put on hold adding unnecessarily to stress and anxiety.
  • There are also significant consequences for staff. Last summer, examination boards lasted many hours across many days and put undue pressure on administrative and academic staff which was detrimental to their health and wellbeing. It is unconscionable that the University would want to put staff through all that again, particularly as it has the chance now to prevent it from happening.

3. ‘The Government and public health bodies are clear that in-person on-campus activities can and should continue’.

  • UCU believes this is a misreading of the guidance and is unrelated to the question of in-person exams.

4. ‘We want to reassure you that the University has taken every precaution to reduce potential risks for both staff and students’

  • UCU cannot agree with this statement since the University is neither mandating the use of proper face masks instead of face coverings nor providing an adequate supply of COVID-free air.

5.  It has come to our attention that the usual reliance on Uniworkforce temporary staff as invigilators has led to a shortage of invigilators due at least in part to a fear of catching COVID whilst invigilating. Absent sight of a risk assessment related to invigilating exams, we are not in a position to comment on the safety of undertaking invigilating work should colleagues be offered the opportunity.

Furthermore, for some subjects, students are being required to attend on-campus in-person examinations which are computer-based online assessments and have been designed to work both online and in-person. Forcing students and supervisory staff to undertake this risk given that there are alternative, viable plans in place seems gratuitous.

Finally, no consideration seems to have been given to the potential harm caused to the wider Southampton community (noting evidence from the USA that young children are at particular risk, and that they are unvaccinated in the UK) by increasing the spread of COVID omicron at this critical time. It seems entirely inappropriate for in-person exams to be taking place in the current climate when it is possible to move to an alternative plan.

Once more, UCU requests your urgent response.

Southampton UCU

 

Response from management to our email of 5 January

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Reasons to vote YES in the USS ballot

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Vote now (and if you don’t have your ballot, request a replacement TODAY) for industrial action over USS.

If necessary, order your replacement ballot here: https://yoursay.ucu.org.uk/s3/USS-HE-replacement-form

Vote for strike action and for action short of a strike.

1. Our dispute is with the University as our employer, represented by Universities UK in national negotiations. It can only be resolved through industrial action against the employer.

2. Over the last few years, USS investments have performed badly compared to other schemes such as the University of London’s internal SAUL pension. USS and UUK have maintained a culture of secrecy and complacency; when a UCU-appointed trustee started asking difficult questions, they worked together to have her removed. The current difficulties are their fault.

3. Our employers have not delivered on their past promises to commit support to USS over the long term. Their refusal of “covenant support” has sabotaged our chance of retaining current benefits at modest cost for a further fifteen months while we work out a long-term solution.

4. The blue line on the graph below shows that, without this UUK sabotage, an academic on £40,000 would have been able to retain current benefits at modest cost. In contrast, UUK is trying to force us to follow the yellow line; we would lose a third of the value of our pension by retirement age. Because of the poor inflation protection, it only gets worse as we get older.

Graph by Prof Mike Otsuka from UCL, a member of the UCU national negotiating team.For details see: https://mikeotsuka.medium.com/the-overwhelming-case-for-retaining-current-uss-pension-benefits-until-april-2023-4d0f935fba48

5. The graph makes a modest assumption of 3.5% CPI inflation. This is substantially lower than it is now. If inflation continues at the current rate, our pension would be much worse.

UCU concerns about returning to campus – email to senior management

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UCU has written today (5 January) to the Vice-Chancellor and Vice-President (Operations) asking them to reconsider the University’s position on returning to campus in January 2022.  We will keep you posted of any response received.

 

From: ucu
Sent: 05 January 2022 13:01
To: Vice-Chancellor <vice-chancellor@soton.ac.uk>; Vice President (Operations) <Vice-PresidentOperations@soton.ac.uk>
Cc: Lucy Watson <Lucy.Watson@soton.ac.uk>; Cathy Day <Cathy.Day@soton.ac.uk>; Alex Neill <A.D.Neill@soton.ac.uk>
Subject: UCU concerns about returning to campus

Dear Mark and Wendy
We are writing to urge you to reconsider your position on COVID restrictions and face to face teaching activity for the final week of this semester and the exam period.

Omicron is now known to be much more infectious than other COVID variants. UCU believes that, alongside getting vaccinated, the most important thing we can do as a community is to try to “spread out” the coming January peak load on the NHS. The impact on public health caused by staff absence, lack of care home placements, the large backlog of scheduled interventions, and new COVID infections will be enormous. We can help reduce this impact by minimising the rate of infection among our staff and students for the next month or so.

We believe that the University should:

  • Cancel large in-person teaching sessions and assessments and consider online alternatives. We know that ECS, along with one or two other STEM departments, are insisting on in-person examinations this semester. We believe that because Omicron is so contagious, staff and students are being put at unnecessary risk of contracting covid during one of these sessions. In addition, those students who test positive before having to attend a face-to-face exam must isolate and the alternatives for them are limited. The University is encouraging students to either not test and risk bringing the variant to campus or test positive and miss an important assessment.
  • Avoid the use of teaching spaces which have not been demonstrated to have an adequate flow of outside or virus-filtered air. The UK government has finally accepted that steps need to be taken to prevent the circulation of COVID within school classrooms and have announced the supply of 7000 “air purifiers”. In contrast, many of our teaching spaces at the University still have not been effectively surveyed even for air flow, regardless of the cleanliness of the incoming air. In most cases, we understand that the recirculated air is not filtered to remove COVID and may well be spreading infection around the whole area (possibly more than a single room) over which it is being recirculated. We also believe that it is not technically possible to operate most of these systems using external air only.
  • Recommend the use of non-valved FFP2 or FFP3 masks. Regardless of the official advice, UCU’s Health and Safety representatives believe that the new omicron variant requires us to enhance the standard of mask that we wear in the workplace. FFP3 respirators without valves are now readily available commercially and the University should provide them for staff who need to be on campus.
  • Finally, the University must provide appropriate remote support for staff and students who are unable to attend in-person because they care for vulnerable people or are vulnerable themselves. This includes carrying out individual risk assessments for staff who are in this position and allowing them to work from home if necessary. Staff should not be expected to teach both in-person and online as this leads to an unacceptable workload increase which staff are barely managing as it is.

Our views are informed by this opinion piece from the British Medical Journal which has a large group of signatories https://www.bmj.com/content/376/bmj.o1.full.pdf. They specifically promote high-quality masks, ventilation, and filtration. We are also taking advice from national UCU and scientists who believe that the Department of Education’s response to Omicron in our settings is woefully inadequate. Universities can choose to do more to protect staff and students independently, and we believe that they should.

As teaching is due to start on Monday, we request your urgent response.

With regards

Southampton UCU Executive Committee

UCU communication with VC and VP Operations re students’ travel plans over the winter break

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We have sent the below urgent email to the Vice Chancellor and Vice-President (Operations) on 14 December following the communication to students yesterday.  The University responded to us today.

 

From: Alex Neill <A.D.Neill@soton.ac.uk>
Sent: 15 December 2021 13:14
To: ucu <ucu@soton.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: Urgent: UCU concerns about students’ travel plans

Dear Southampton UCU,

I am writing in reply to your message to the Vice-Chancellor and the Vice-President (Operations) in which you suggest that the University move to online learning for non-practical classes until the end of the Semester.  The University has considered this option in the light of the new variant and student cases numbers, and we have determined that we should continue to follow the latest government guidance, which states that in-person teaching and research should continue ‘as is’.

We continue to monitor very closely our positive cases numbers at the University, taking speedy and proportionate action when we need to do so, working closely with our partner agencies including the local public health teams, the Health Protection Board and the UK Health Security Agency.  As we approach the end of term, we are seeing an increase in COVID cases which may in part be due to the increase in testing which is required before students leave for home this week. We have yet to find any evidence that transmission has taken place in a teaching environment.

With respect to the availability of LFD tests, at Southampton we continue to benefit from our unique saliva testing programme and we continue to encourage all staff and students to take advantage of that; currently 61% of staff are using the programme. In addition to the saliva testing option, LFD tests have been available for collection from the staff club foyer.  The University continues to offer support to any member of staff experiencing work related stress or mental health anxiety.

Best wishes,

Alex

————————————————-

Professor Alex Neill
Vice-President (Education)

 

 

From: ucu
Sent: 14 December 2021 15:19
To: Vice-Chancellor <vice-chancellor@soton.ac.uk>; Vice President (Operations) <Vice-PresidentOperations@soton.ac.uk>
Cc: Kieron Broadhead <K.Broadhead@soton.ac.uk>; Cathy Day <Cathy.Day@soton.ac.uk>; Luke Kelly <L.A.Kelly@soton.ac.uk>; Lucy Watson <Lucy.Watson@soton.ac.uk>
Subject: Urgent: UCU concerns about students’ travel plans

Dear Mark and Wendy

We write urgently to express our concern at the latest email from Kieron Broadhead sent to students on 13th December. The email reminds students that they are responsible for their own actions and should consider how they can ‘reduce the risk of self-isolation impacting [their] winter break plans’ by ‘balancing the various factors that are important’ to them when planning to travel. On Wednesday 8th December, VP Operations Wendy Appleby sent an email to all staff stating that teaching plans would remain the same and that teaching staff were exempt from the government’s work from home advice. The message from university management was clear that in person teaching would continue for the rest of this week. This expectation was reiterated in the CHSC on Monday 13th December.

We are now in a position where students must choose between staying on campus and attending in person classes, thereby risking testing positive and being unable to travel over Christmas or missing some of their education. Conversely, staff are expected to be on campus and teach in person regardless of the fact that cases amongst the student population are rising at an alarming rate: 95 new cases today alone. This increased risk of infection, along with the difficulty of getting boosters and the lack of availability of lateral flow tests is adding to stress and anxiety for the whole university community as we run up to the end of the semester.

The only sensible course of action is for all non-practical classes to be moved online for the rest of the semester so that students and staff can stay safe and ensure they can spend some much-needed time with family and friends over the holidays. We note that Kieron Broadhead’s email does not ask students to test before they return home. Surely the importance of testing is something the university should be reinforcing in its messaging consistently.

As this is a rapidly evolving situation, we ask for your prompt response.

Southampton UCU executive committee

SUCU workload survey – summary of results

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Thanks to members of Southampton UCU who completed our recent workload survey.  We summarised the responses and presented them at the Joint Negotiating Committee meeting on 11 November with university management.  Management were very interested to see the results and have committed to work with UCU in early 2022 on this important issue.

If any members are interested in getting involved with a local working group on workloads, please get in touch with Amanda at the UCU office (ucu@soton.ac.uk).