Annual Leave Claim – Member consultation on employers offer

Members are now being sent invitations to respond to the consultation online. The consultation will run for one week until 28 June 2016.

The branch has now concluded negotiations with the University in relation to our claim, which was for an uplift in annual leave for staff on CTS terms (grades 1 – 6) in order to bring this in line with the allowance afforded to staff on AMP terms (grades 7+).

The University’s initial offer was to increase annual leave by two days, subject to service. The branch rejected this offer on the grounds of equality. Higher grades do not have to have earn additional leave based on service, therefore neither should 1-6s.

Following further negotiations, the University conceded an immediate uplift (subject to agreement being reached prior to the end of July) from 25 days to 27 days for staff employed on grades 1-6 irrespective of service length.

Included in this agreement is a clause accommodating a change in the way that annual leave is calculated. Should members agree to this offer, leave will be calculated on pro-rated basis according to each day worked (with leave allowances being rounded up to the nearest half-day). Full details of the offer can be found here.

The University have informed us that they are not willing to offer the full uplift to 30 days due to financial considerations.

We are disappointed that the University has not been able to meet our claim in full but the Branch remains committed to the longer-term goal of equality in annual leave provision across all grades. We wil revisit this matter with the University in the future.

At this present time, we  believe that this offer is the best that can be secured by negotiation. We believe that only a period of sustained industrial action would potentially lead to an improvement in the offer.

Given the above, the branch is not making a recommendation to either accept or reject the offer. We ask all members to respond to the consultation.

Student Central – Proposed Restructure

As affected members and staff will be aware, the University is proposing a significant restructure at Student Central. If implemented this would involve a significant reduction in staff in addition to the outsourcing of Student Central’s front-of-house and bar/catering operations.

The branch was profoundly disappointed that it was only notified of these changes one hour before these were communicated to staff. We do not believe that the University followed best practice in this regard.

Following this announcement the branch submitted a response to the University challenging the proposed timetable. We subsequently submitted an additional response challenging many aspects of the proposed changes. We are still awaiting for the University to respond to the points we have raised.

The branch views the current proposals as short sighted and counter-productive to the stated aim of achieving a balanced budget, and the branch remains opposed to the outsourcing of services.

Higher Education Pay 2016-17 Consultative Ballot

UNISON Senate House & Edexcel branch will be conducting a consultative ballot in relation to the employers 1.1% pay offer for 2016-17.

Affected members should expect to receive an invitation to respond to the consultation via email.

The branch committee is recommending that members reject the offer.

We have prepared a comprehensive briefing pack explaining this recommendation here.

Angela Jelfs - ICE Statement

Please vote for Angela in the upcoming ICE ballot, and see the attached statement for more information.

Angela Jelfs ICE Statement

Letter to CoSector

Sally Townsend

CoSector

University of London

Dear Sally

We are writing to you to express our members’ deep reservations on the future direction of CoSector.

Since the change of management took place last year, we have been broadly supportive of your efforts to restructure the business in order for it to grow. We welcomed your apparent abandonment of the proposals to alter terms and conditions for new and existing staff; and in return we accepted the argument that the new senior management team would remain in place for the purposes of growing CoSector’s business.

However, developments in the past week, which seem to be widely known within all parts of CoSector, have cause great concern, not just for those directly affected, but other members who now fear for their futures’ within the organisation.

To be clear, we refer to the proposed changes to TCG Central Services team and Online Services team. If these proposals are implemented, it will lead to the compulsory redundancy of four staff, with the implication that future downsizing will occur once changes take place.

We were lead to believe that no redundancies would take place in the short term and certainly not before the publication of the long awaited business plan, which you have not provided to neither the Board of Trustees nor unions as of this date.  We appreciate that these matters should not be rushed into and consequently we strongly urge you to postpone these proposals for the time being.

You should note that UCU and UNISON have a policy of opposing all compulsory redundancies and we oppose these proposals now. We will be seeking to involve our respective national unions, via the London regional offices.

We find it very unfortunate that many of the concerned members believe that the faults of the business lie with the management that was imposed last year. In particular, the high cost base that is being shared amongst budgets, causing once surplus deriving teams to fall into a loss.  As we have said, we recognise that in order to grow and be successful CoSector needs good and effective management in place. This is not necessarily cheap.  However, your latest round of proposals implies that the business is trying to cut costs and downsize. This is not the strategy of a business trying to grow. Members can see this quite clearly and are dismayed.

We look forward to your response on this urgent matter.

Best

Jon Bitmead

On behalf of the Senate House UCU branch

  

Sam Ferman

On behalf of the Senate House UNISON branch

ICE Vote

The Information and Consultation Elections ballot opens on 7th March 2016. Please take a look at our ICE Vote page for more information.

ICE Vote Page

UNISON Annual Leave Claim

Today (28 January 2016), UNISON – Senate House and EdExcel branch submitted the following claim to the University of London on behalf of University of London members working in grades 1 – 6.

UNISON Annual Leave Claim  Bands 1-6 University of London

  

In line with clause 1.1 and 3.3 of the Recognition and Procedure Agreement between the University of London (“the central University) and UNISON we wish to table the following claim on behalf of all UNISON members employed in grades 1-6.

UNISON wish to open immediate negotiations with the University to secure parity across all grades in respect of annual leave entitlement as set out within the University Annual Leave Policy that currently facilitates for:

1.2    Employees on Academic or Administrative, Management and Professional (AMP) terms of conditions of employment with the Central University receive 6 weeks leave. Employees in other grades receive 5 weeks.

UNISON firmly believe that this policy contradicts one of the founding  principles of the University namely equality “that remains a commitment today in respect of all staff employed by the University”

We further believe the current clause 1.2 brings into question clause 3.2 of the University Single Equality Scheme.

The Claim

All employees, regardless of grade, employed by the University of London will receive 6 weeks annual leave.

We seek to open negotiations around this claim as a matter of urgency and at your earliest opportunity and further  seek to have the claim met in full and at no cost to our members.