Branch Meeting - Pay Claim and Ballot for Action

UNISON Senate House branch meeting

Speaker: Max Watson, UNISON NEC

Thursday 9th August 2012

1-2pm, Woburn Room, Senate House

In September 2012 all HE Unison members will be balloted over the 2012 pay claim. The unions have asked for a 7% increase on all pay points. In return the employers have offered a final pay offer of 1% - effectively a pay cut since inflation was 3% in the year up to April 2012.

Living costs have increased by over 12% over the last four years. In that same period, pay increases have been worth 2.4% of pay for many staff.

Our employers admitted to HEFCE last year that staff costs were at an all time low while reporting strong surpluses at most institutions. Our claim for 7%, which would only begin to make up for the below inflation wage increases of the last few years, is fair and reasonable.

This is your chance to hear more about the pay claim and to have your say before the ballot opens. Members and non-members are welcome.

We look forward to seeing you there!

Refreshments will be provided.

Contact Josephine Grahl | josephine.grahl@sas.ac.uk | 020 7862 5814

Latin American Fiesta

It's taken me a couple of weeks to recover, but I just wanted to update people on our June 30 event, which was a massive success. I think in total around 300 people came, with a great mixture of outsourced workers, students activists and staid union types like myself. MPs John McDonnell and Frank Dobson both spoke, but there were also speeches from workers involved with the campaign, and from comrades from as far away as Zimbabwe.

There was also a lot of music and much dancing...unnamed committee members were apparently out until 6am the next morning...

Anyway, a load of photos can be found here, getting blurrier as the night goes on, and you can read the text in English and Spanish of Membership Officer Robinson's rousing speech here.

Pay negotiations - update

Following the indicative ballot over the employers’ final 2012/13 pay offer, Sandy Nicoll from SOAS has reported back from the HE Service Group Executive that the result nationally was a 68% vote to reject the offer.

The Senate House branch vote was a 94% vote to reject on a 44% turnout – thanks to everyone who responded.

On the basis of these results, the UNISON Higher Education Service Group Executive voted unanimously to declare an official dispute with the employers and to enter into the disputes resolution procedure. This will lead to further meetings with the employers over the next few weeks.

If there is no significant improvement made to the pay offer at these meetings, the UNISON HESGE unanimously voted to ballot members formally in September over the offer and, if the result of the formal ballot confirms members’ rejection of the pay offer, to begin the process leading to industrial action. 

All the other Higher Education trade unions (UCU, UNITE, GMB and the EIS in Scotland) have now rejected the offer and the HESGE voted to attempt to co-ordinate any industrial action with them.

There will be a meeting for all Bloomsbury UNISON members interested in getting involved in the pay campaign this Wednesday (11 July 2012) at 1pm in room S16 at the Institute of Education (the room is off the IoE Students' Union bar). It would be good to see Senate House well represented at this meeting. The meeting will receive an update on the pay campaign and discuss how to make the campaign as effective as possible including organising joint meetings with the UCU, general publicity, etc.

We hope to see you there.

Bloomsbury Living Wage Campaign Latin American Fiesta

Senate House UNISON invite you to join us to mark our victory in the London Living Wage campaign at Senate House, which we are celebrating with a Latin American Fiesta.

When: Saturday 30 June, from 4pm until late.

Where: SOAS Junior Common Room, Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, London WC1H 0XG.

What: Food, drink, Latin American music, a live band and the bare minimum of speeches.

Who: Everyone – crèche facilities will be available.

How much:  ABSOLUTELY FREE.

For more information: See http://www.facebook.com/events/415140998531405/ or email danny.millum@sas.ac.uk.

"a new trade unionism for a modern workforce"

Owen Jones, who spoke at the branch AGM, has an interesting article about the future of trade unions at CLASS, the Centre for Labour and Social Studies.

He writes: But it is the change in the nature of the workforce that, above all, makes it far harder to organise. The new service sector jobs are cleaner, less back-breaking and exclude women less, although they tend to be concentrated in the lowest-paid and most insecure work. On the other hand, pay is often lower: sacked car workers at the Longbridge car factory who ended up in the service sector were on an average of 60% of the pay. Communities are not based around supermarkets and call centres, as they once were around steelworks, mines and docks.

...The explosion in unemployment and underemployment also pose a huge challenge. According to the TUC, if you include ‘economically inactive’ people not included in the official unemployment figures and those forced to do part-time jobs, there are over six million people looking for full-time work. Such a huge army of potential jobseekers strengthens the hands of bosses and saps the confidence of other workers, because they feel less confident about rocking the boat knowing there is no shortage of others willing to replace them.

Do read the whole piece.

June 30 - fiesta to celebrate London Living Wage finally being paid at Senate House

Plans are underway for a big celebration to mark the University of London finally starting to pay the London Living Wage to all employee from the start of July.

There will be a fiesta of Latin American music, food, drink and dance at SOAS from 4pm on Saturday 30 June - all welcome!!!!

Just give me (danny.millum@sas.ac.uk) a shout if you fancy coming along or if you want to help out.

More details to follow....

Letter from Senate House UNISON re Women's Library

Dear Professor Gillies

I wish to express my deep concern about the decision to divest custodianship of The Women's Library. There should be no reason to have to remind you what a tremendously important centre for research and community activism this Library is, with the largest collection of materials relating to women and the women's movement in Britain including UNESCO recognised documents on women's struggle for the right to vote.

It shocks me that the University would even contemplate the possibility of reducing openings hours to one day a week, should the Library fail to find a new home. Not only would this undo all the work of the last ten years in opening up access and widening community-use of the Library, it would also have a disastrous effect  on future research and the disciplines of women's history and gender studies.

It is also very worrying that a widening-participation University such as London Met should not value the vibrant research culture that The Women's Library provides. Surely London Met students deserve access to this aspect of knowledge and learning as much as students at 'elite' institutions. I ask that London Met seriously consider its responsibility as custodian of world-class collections.

Not only must these collections remain together, but the Library must also retain its own building to ensure the continued visibility of women's history and heritage. Also crucial is the expertise of hard-working and longstanding staff with an extensive knowledge of the collections.

I have been pleased to see the coverage in The Guardian, Diva Magazine, History Workshop Journal, Private Eye, and the Museums Journal, as well as on the websites of numerous women's organisations and archives. Also to note that over 6,000 people have signed the petition against the proposed sell-off.

A number of commentators have suggested that, given the financial difficulties make it impossible for you to provide the necessary protection of The Women's Library collections, then the Ministers of Culture and Education need to step in to ensure that the Library is adequately provided for. I would be very interested to hear your views on the number of points raised in this letter.

Yours sincerely

Alice Griffin and Josephine Grahl Unison Senate House Branch