Category: Uncategorized

Open Letter Live!

Posted on by ucuuea3

The open letter/petition to gather signatures is live!

This letter was drafted by one of our brilliant members and is published in conjunction with our sister unions, UNITE and UNISON. The letter builds on the no confidence vote we held at our last EGM and outlines the actions/behaviour we want to see from UEA management.  

 Please sign and circulate it far and wide – to colleagues, students, alumni, anyone who you can think might be supportive. Post it on social media, send a mass email chain, shout it from the rooftops – we need as much exposure as possible! 

Link to petition: https://chng.it/VNNfRr7g

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All member meeting – 13 Feb 2023

Posted on by ucuuea3

To keep members informed about current developments on the national disputes and the local crisis, we are going to have more regular general meetings for all branch members.

The next branch emergency general meeting (EGM) will be on Monday 13rd February from 14:30 – 15:30 on Teams and in NewSci 0.05. Please attend if you can. The link for the meeting was in the branch email of 6th Feb 2023, but do contact us if you don’t have it!

You can always email us at Ucu.Office@uea.ac.uk. Our Twitter handle is @UEA_UCU.

All member meeting – Feb 3, 2023

Posted on by ucuuea3

With escalating strike action beginning from 1 February 2023 alongside the local issues at UEA regarding proposed cuts, information on the ground is changing rapidly. To make sure members are informed and have the opportunity to feed in, we will be increasing the frequency of all-member meetings over Feb and March 2023. These will be hybrid wherever possible and details will go out via email.

There will be a branch emergency general meeting (EGM) on Friday 3rd February from 13:00 – 14:00 on Teams and in the Council Chambers. Please do attend if you can. The link for the meeting will be sent via email by Tuesday 31/2/23, but contact us if you have’t received it!

If you can’t attend, you can always email us at Ucu.Office@uea.ac.uk. Our Twitter handle is @UEA_UCU.

USS – urgent message from UCU branch committee

Posted on by ucuuea2

The UCU@UEA branch committee has written urgently to Vice-Chancellor David Richardson today. Our email is below.

 

We urge all members to sign the UCU national petition to save our pensions: https://t.co/UOvsTctBRR

 

In solidarity,

 

UCU@UEA branch committee

 

 

Dear David,

We are writing to request that you urge your representatives in Universities UK to revoke their unnecessary cuts to the Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS) due to take place tomorrow Friday 1st April, in light of the recent USS Financial Monitoring Plan  (FMP), which shows that the scheme is financially healthy, and to instruct USS to implement UCU’s proposals as the most sensible short-term solution ahead of a new valuation.

Growth in the scheme’s assets from £66.5bn in March 2020 to £88.8bn at the end of February 2022, has outstripped growth in liabilities, meaning that the required deficit recovery contributions now stand at 0%.  The strong financial position of the scheme, as reflected in the new FMP, demonstrates that UEA and other USS institutions will be paying out huge sums of money to redress a deficit that does not exist. In UEA’s case this sum appears to stand at £7.3 million per year.

If the cuts to guaranteed retirement income in USS come into force and are not reversed, they will not only entrench deep inequalities in our sector but threaten its future.  For many of our members, a good pension was a saving grace in the face of erosion of pay and working conditions. Sadly, we were therefore unsurprised that UCU’s recent survey showed 60% of staff planning to leave the sector in the next five years over these pension cuts.

Neither you nor any other institution in USS should be wasting money on a non-existent deficit. By pushing for UCU’s proposals to be tabled and passed — as the best solution while the union and UUK work together to press for a sensible, moderately prudent valuation — you will be protecting the pensions of your staff, who are, after all, the single most important resource for a university.

Our members are already profoundly dejected by the attacks on pensions and pay, and as staff surveys continue to demonstrate, morale among UEA staff is at an all-time low. If UUK presses ahead with these cuts after they have been decisively shown to be completely unnecessary, it would be an unforgivable betrayal.

Please do everything in your power to urgently pressure UUK to change course.

Yours sincerely,

The UCU@UEA Branch Committee

New Branch Motion Passed at EGM

Posted on by ucuuea2

The following motion was put to an Emergency General Meeting on the 20th January and was passed unanimously by those in attendance:

Motion 1: Face-to-Face Teaching, Online Learning and Covid-Safety on Campus

The local UCU Branch notes that:

  • The UCU National guidance and position is that all HE teaching provision, other than that which is Government mandated should be carried out remotely and online.
  • The recently identified variants of Covid-19 are more transmissible, and therefore do represent a more significant and imminent risk to staff & students engaging in in-person, face-to-face teaching.
  • The University as our employer has taken a reactive stance in responding to the latest evolutions of the pandemic. This has led to last minute decisions, which are insufficiently prepared and improperly communicated to all staff and students, with deleterious effects on staff physical and mental health as well as unmanageable workloads.

The local UCU Branch resolves:

  • To actively advocate for the University to adopt the UCU national position on face-to-face teaching or, failing that, to move as close to it as possible.
  • To actively advocate for the University to suspend all in-person, face-to-face teaching events until the start of the academic year 2021-2022 and replace them with appropriate online provisions, including adequate resources and pedagogical and technical support.
  • To actively advocate for ensuring that, where staff and students are required by Government policy to engage in face-to-face interactions, the University takes a proactive approach that goes beyond the current government minimal health and safety guidance to promote the highest standards of health and safety.