Here are a few pictures of some of our picket lines and our afternoon rally from yesterday’s strike action:
And to spice things up, some of our colleagues singing protest songs over at Avenue Campus:
31 October 2013 Industrial Action
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Category Archives: News
UPDATE: Statement on contracts forthcoming
Some members have been in touch regarding the recent discussions between UCU and the University on new academic contracts. A statement on this will be issued jointly with the University shortly.
Both UCU and the University are committed to working on this constructively in the future. Following discussions at recent formal negotiation meetings, we can confirm that the clauses mentioned in our previous email regarding fixed working hours and international working will not be included in any new contracts.
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Eric Silverman
Southampton UCU President
On the health of our USS pensions
Dear members,
We are aware that you may have been following the stories about USS pension on Radio 4 and Newsnight last week and on the BBC website.
Colleagues at Sheffield UCU branch have circulated the following helpful information:
The USS annual members report on which the story was based (issued two weeks ago) shows that the deficit has in fact sharply fallen over the previous year. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the fake ‘revelations’ are timed to undermine support for our strike on 31st October.
So what is the reality?
* The scheme was officially 92% funded in March 2011, 77% funded in March 2012, 77% in March 2013, and 83% funded June 2013. This corresponds to an official deficit of £2.9bn in 2011 rocketing up to £11.5 billion by March 2013 but dropping to £7.9 billion just three months later.
* This incredible volatility gives a clue to the underlying problem with the official figures. Pension schemes are very long term investments and should be judged on that basis whilst the law requires that they are judged on short term criteria. The huge pension fund deficits across the country reported in the 2000’s, including the USS one, are as phoney as the huge surpluses in the 1980’s. USS is in good health based on real world criteria: its income exceeds expenditure on a long term sustainable basis.
* Pensions are simply deferred pay. And the proportion of University sector spending which goes on staff, including pensions, has in fact been in continual decline. It was roughly 65% when fees paid by home students were zero and has gone down to about 55% (54% in Sheffield) now fees are £9,000. If Newsnight really wanted to locate the reason for rocketing student fees they would need to look elsewhere than staff pay and pensions.
* Britain has one of the worst records in Europe in pensioner poverty, corresponding to our lead in inequality. There are 20,000 to 30,000 ‘excess deaths’ of elderly people in winter every year in Britain – dying of cold, hunger and diseases contingent on them. This is the real pensions scandal.
For a cogent explanation of the USS ‘deficits’ please see a letter to the THE from this same scare-story season last year, ‘Accounting tricks and pension deficits’.
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Professor Catherine Pope
Southampton UCU Honorary Treasurer
Happy 65th Birthday NHS!
Today our friends from the Southampton and South-West Hampshire Trades Union Council held a birthday celebration for the NHS, which turns 65 today. Long may it continue! Pictures are below. For those who want to help protect the NHS from privatisation, please get in touch with Keep Our NHS Public — they have a branch in Southampton and meet regularly to campaign on NHS-related issues.
To follow the activities of the Trades Union Council in Southampton you can check out their Facebook page. If you wish to become a delegate to the TUC, please contact the UCU office.
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Eric Silverman
Southampton UCU President
Southampton UCU AGM – 27 June 2013
Attention all members:
* * * R E M I N D E R * * *
What: Southampton UCU AGM
When: 1pm – 2.30 pm, Thursday 27 June 2013
Where: Building 58/1009 (Murray Building) Highfield campus
Please come along and join the discussion about the University’s Academic Pay and Reward Proposals as well as finding out the results of our recent UCU Staff Survey.
More details can be found on the attached poster – please feel free to print and display within your AU / Department / Faculty.
We look forward to seeing you there.
UCU member survey
Colleagues,
Southampton UCU has put together a staff survey, which you can find at the link below:
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!
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Eric Silverman
Southampton UCU President
Dr Jenny Rohn and the Science Is Vital Campaign
We were pleased to host Dr Jenny Rohn of the Science Is Vital Campaign for our Anti-Casualisation Day of Action on 6 March. Dr Rohn gave us a stimulating and enlightening presentation on the Campaign’s work on academic job security and their current push for protecting research funding in the UK.
For those of you who missed the event, Dr Rohn has given us permission to upload her presentation slides here. Please note that these slides should not be re-used without her permission, nor are they intended for general public dissemination!
6 March – Anti-Casualisation Day of Action
On Wednesday 6th March UCU is holding an Anti-Casualisation Day of Action. This day will be a platform for publicizing the issues associated with the growing over-use of fixed-term contracts and the proliferation of poorly-paid and poorly-valued casualised positions in UK academia. We will be spending the day holding information stalls and running events to raise awareness of these problems, and to inspire colleagues on casualised contracts to join our union and help us in our local bargaining efforts.
What is happening at Southampton:
1. 11:00 to 14:00 – We are running two information stalls to be run at the Highfield and Avenue Campuses, at these stalls you will be able to ask about national UCU policy and current local branch priorities with respect to Fixed Term Contracts.
We will also have a large variety of campaign materials, flyers, posters, and stickers available which we encourage you to pass along to colleagues and put around your workplace to show your support. If you’d like to become involved in our anti-casualisation campaigns, we will be happy to advise you on how to join our efforts!
2. 15:00 to 17:00 – We will be running a workshop called Casualisation and Academic Careers, to be held in building 34/3001. The workshop will feature several different speakers:
—Dr Joe Viana, Southampton UCU Fixed-Term Contract Representative, will explain why you should get involved in our anti-casualisation efforts and the challenges we face in this area;
—Dr Eric Silverman, Southampton UCU President, will talk about our extensive local bargaining agenda on this issue and will give a summary of the national picture;
—Dr Julie Reeves, from the University of Southampton Professional Development Unit, will detail how the University aims to support the career development of researchers and academics on fixed-term contracts;
—Dr Jenny Rohn of the Science is Vital Campaign, our special guest speaker, will discuss the Campaign’s grassroots efforts to promote the importance of a strong science base to the UK’s economy and international reputation. For more information, please visit the Campaign’s website. In particular, we recommend reading their report titled Careering Out Of Control, which does a fantastic job of summarising the current unsustainable nature of the academic career path.
Please do come and join us for the Day of Action! The issue of casualisation affects all of us — it forces thousands of our colleagues to endure job insecurity, poor work-life balance, and high stress levels; it reduces the productivity of our academic teams and causes us to lose promising talent and valuable expertise; and it splits academia against itself, creating inequality and animosity between permanent staff and casualised staff.
The academic career structure is becoming increasingly dominated by casualised contracts, and we must act now to protect our friends and colleagues!
We will be using the attached poster (AntiCas Poster) to promote the event and encourage academics on casualised contracts to join us on the day. If you feel able, please do print out a copy and place it on your door so that your colleagues can see what we have planned.
The national UCU office has also provided a lot of excellent flyers and other materials for the Day of Action, which you can find here.
Southampton UCU will have plenty of hard copies of these materials available closer to the day, so please contact us if you require any copies to distribute in your workplace.
In solidarity,
Eric Silverman (President) & Joe Viana (Fixed Term Contract Rep)
Article about casualisation in academia from The Guardian
There’s a good article in The Guardian today about job insecurity amongst younger academics. It provides some personal stories from young academics on insecure contracts (including myself!) and mentions the Anti-Casualisation Day of Action on 6 March, organised by Ed Bailey and the national UCU campaigns team:
The University and College Union (UCU) is holding a national day of action for casual workers next month. It says that higher education has become one of the most casualised sectors in the UK – second only to the hospitality industry. Edward Bailey, who is leading the protest for the union, says: “We are seeing an increase in people who are on successive fixed-term contracts for years on end. There is a feeling that universities are calling all the shots and they should be grateful just to have a job, but these places shouldn’t be sausage factories.”
Please give it a read and spread the word to your colleagues. The more attention drawn to this issue, the more chances we have to enact change!
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Eric Silverman
Southampton UCU President