Sally Hunt, UCU General Secretary, sent the following message to all members: Dear colleague As you may know UCU is campaigning against proposals in the government’s Counter-terrorism and Security Bill which we believe pose a threat to academic freedom and risk undermining the trust between teacher and student in colleges and universities. On the eve
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It was with great sadness that we learned of the passing away of Jim Bradley, who acted as both Vice President and President of UCU Stirling Branch. He made a huge contribution to the Union and UCU Scotland as a whole, as well as to the wider trade union movement. He was a much loved
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Sally Hunt has sent a reminder that all UCU members are invited to complete our survey exploring the fairness, accessibility and transparency of the higher education application and admission process and how this works for your students. Please do take a moment to complete the survey.
As part of our national campaigning work against casualisation, UCU is conducting research on the impact of precarious and casualised contracts on the struggle to make ends meet. While universities and colleges are happy to use the line that institutions and staff alike ‘value the flexibility’ of casualised contracts, members tell us that they struggle
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Pensions dispute: Bullying tactics violate workers’ human rights 11 November 2014 By Professor Alan Bogg, University of Oxford and Professor K D Ewing, King’s College London. How should workers respond to bullying and intimidation tactics used by employers during industrial action disputes? Two leading academics consider the current dispute in the university sector. It is
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Latest letter from Sally Hunt: Dear colleague, THANK YOU! Over 6,000 of you have already signed our mass petition re USS. We have had a few emails from members who are saying that they cannot view the link to the petition in yesterday’s email – for those who can’t, here it is again
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The ballot closed at noon on Monday 20 October 2014. The responses to the questions members were balloted on are as follows: Are you prepared to take industrial action consisting of strike action? Number of ballot papers counted: 17,212 Number voting YES: 13,395 (77.8%) Number voting NO: 3,817 (22.2%) Are you prepared to take industrial
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The NEC has agreed a new legal scheme, a copy of which is available here. The scheme is substantially unchanged, the difference being an amendment to the wording in regulation 1.5. Please make sure that if you use the legal scheme, you are aware of the new scheme, and that if you are seeking legal assistance, you are provided with
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Lecturers at the University of Dundee have begun to work to contract in an escalation of their dispute with the university over plans to cut 120 jobs. The action* means that members of the University and College Union (UCU) at the university will only work their contracted hours, perform no extra voluntary duties (such as out of hours
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Lesson observation has no discernible impact on the quality of teaching and learning: A new report has called into question the widely used practice of graded lesson observation, suggesting it has no discernible impact on the quality of teaching and learning. A year-long project Dr by Dr Matt O’Leary looking into the use and impact
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