13/04/2021 Dear colleague I’m writing to update you about a really important current initiative which I’d love to see a lot of UCU members taking part in. Organizing for Power Last autumn 400 UCU members and over 20 staff took part in ‘Strike School’ – part of the ‘Organising for Power’ series of international online training courses
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UCU Congress UCU Congress is taking place from 29 May- 2 June 2021. The deadline for delegate registration is 30 April. Full details on Congress, including branch delegate entitlement, is available here: https://www.ucu.org.uk/Congress2021 Delegation registration can be completed here: https://ucu.wufoo.com/forms/ucu-congress-2021/ Training: Supporting Disabled Colleagues in Casework Training is available on
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Dear colleague, UCU has called on the government and universities to switch to fully online teaching as the default for the duration of next term. We have not taken this decision lightly but we believe that it is in the best interests of staff, students and the public. Read the story outlining our position here.
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UCU is still offering free membership to PhD Teaching Students for 4 years! This is a unique opportunity for you to join our Union and take advantage of all that we can offer our members. See here for our presentation. It is very quick to join. Just visit https://www.ucu.org.uk and then press the button marked
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Dear colleagues Recently, the House of Lords backed an amendment to the higher education (HE) bill that says universities’ performance in the teaching excellence framework (TEF) should not be linked to the tuition fees they are allowed to charge. This is a significant blow for the government and the result of a great deal of
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Governance Act We have received an update from the higher education minister, Shirley-Anne Somerville, on the timescales for implementing the governance act and outlining when different aspects of the act will come into force. The letter received is attached. In line with what we’d previously been informed the provisions of the act were commenced at
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UCU continues to keep the heat on universities with our ‘stamp out casual contracts’ campaign. Following an excellent day of action against precarious employment UCU general secretary Sally Hunt has spoken out in the Times Higher Education (THE) on HE institutions’ inadequate response to published data showing an exploitative employment model.
Members at the University of Aberdeen took strike action on Wednesday, 7th December in response to the University’s plans to cut jobs and downgrade staff within the School of Medicine, Medical Sciences and Nutrition. If you would like to send messages of support and solidarity, please send these to the Aberdeen branch – ucu@abdn.ac.uk
UCU is pleased to confirm that staff who were put on FutureWorks agency contracts will now be offered CU Services employment contracts, recognition has now been agreed and in addition, the union and the University have agreed to meet for talks around the issue of dealing with recognition in the group’s companies. Thank you to
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Dear colleague Members will have differing views on the result of the referendum on EU membership. However what is not in doubt is that the UK now faces a period of considerable economic and political uncertainty. That uncertainty extends into the places where UCU members work in three main ways. First, in practical concerns about
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