1) Emergency General Meeting, 14th September, 13:00-14:00, LT3, Arts Complex
An Emergency General Meeting has been scheduled on 14th September at 13:00 to discuss and vote on the motion ‘This branch believes that UCU should reballot members nationally as regards the current pay dispute’ [PDF].
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2) Change to Termination of Contract/Notice Period
HR has proposed a change to the notice period of staff on grades J and above terms and conditions, specifically those staff with teaching responsibilities. Branch negotiators are minded not to accept these changes.
Current
5.1 Members of staff are required to give the University 3 months’ notice of termination of their employment. Staff who have teaching responsibilities are required to give 3 months’ notice in writing, expiring on 31 December, 31 March, 30 June or 30 September unless varied by agreement with the manager.
Proposed
5.1 Members of staff are required to give the University 3 months’ notice of termination of their employment. Staff with teaching responsibilities are required to give three months’ notice to expire at a date outside of recognised teaching blocks and their associated assessment periods, unless varied by agreement with their Head of School.
Branch negotiators feel that the proposed change would potentially lead to a substantial extension of the notice period from the 3-month principle of the current terms and conditions.
This would be detrimental for many academic staff. We are concerned with the lack of clarity in the proposed change, the loss of the 31st March expiration date, and the shift from specific dates to the more nebulous notion of ‘…associated assessment periods’.
Please let ucu-office@bristol.ac.uk what you think. UCU reps should also be canvassing for your views in Schools.
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3) Current Restructuring in Comms and Marketing
Despite a proposal to greatly enhance the staff numbers within the Communications and Marketing Division more than 20 existing staff are currently informally at risk of redundancy. The number of roles at risk is noteworthy – this is the highest number of roles to be put at risk at Bristol since the Support Process Review (SPR) of 2009-2011 – and given the scale, UCU is very much involved in representing members.
As highlighted in the last Newsflash, new job descriptions have been created at the same grades as current roles, but the University – as things stand – is proposing not to slot staff into these roles, stating that they are too different from current roles to slot. This means that staff will have to apply for the new roles and may be unsuccessful creating a very dangerous precedent within the Institution.
UCU, Communications and Marketing staff, and our sister unions are challenging this interpretation. At our request the consultation period has been extended to the end of September. If this concerns you please let ucu-office@bristol.ac.uk but also contact the Acting Head of Communications and Marketing (Maggie.Leggett@bristol.ac.uk).
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4) Gender Pay Briefing, Monday 3rd October, 10:00-15:30
The meeting is intended to share UCU gender pay data (some of the best held by UK trade unions), explain how we can tackle the gender pay gap and explore other related gender pay issues.
To register: https://ucu.wufoo.com/forms/bristol-gender-pay-briefings-3-october-16/
Please note: UCU has produced a comprehensive briefing Holding down Women’s Pay [PDF] and has a hotline for any gender inequality issues: 0800 983 0344