Staff members in Criminology have been voicing concerns for over twelve months about completely unsustainable and excessive workloads, without an adequate response from Faculty and School management. The Branch Executive has therefore decided to declare a dispute on behalf of its members and request that the problems be urgently rectified.
You can read our Declaration of Dispute here.
In solidarity,
ARU UCU Branch Executive
The ARU UCU Executive Committee has sent an Open Letter to Professor Laurie Butler, the Dean of FSE.
We have had multiple staff members from the School of Psychology, Sport and Sensory Science raise serious concerns about the improper implementation of our Collaborative Agreement within their School, resulting in serious staff dissatisfaction and overwork. We have investigated the matter, and identified a series of problems, including the imposition of workloads (instead of assigning workloads through negotiations), staff working significantly over 100% and AWBM figures being massaged to hide this, inadequate teaching preparation and research time being given to staff, and numerous others.
We have requested an investigation into the matter and for Professor Laurie Butler to respond to us by Friday, September 19th.
You can read the full Open Letter here.
In solidarity,
ARU UCU Executive Committee
The ARU UCU Branch has adopted a new constitution. You can read the new constitution here.
ARU UCU Branch Executive
A major crisis is unfolding at ARU-Peterborough, where it is apparent that Social Work Education is being sabotaged. Professional standards are under threat, our workload agreement has been systematically ignored and members are being placed under unbearable strain and made ill. Students have taken the lead and mounted protests against institutional failure.
We have written to our Vice Chancellor, Professor Roderick Watkins, calling upon him to intervene. With no meaningful progress, UCU members have taken the decision to go to ballot in support of an all-out indefinite strike. (See our correspondence with the VC here.) UCU wants to avoid unnecessary open conflict. However, we are not going to tolerate any further temporising or the degradation of standards. It is not good for our members, our students, and our university. The crisis is here and now.
We very much hope than an amicable solution can be reached, protecting students, colleagues and standards.
ARU UCU Branch Executive
Staff members from the Faculty of Health, Medicine and Social Care, especially in Nursing, have been raising serious concerns with ARU UCU around a number of issues relating to excessive workloads and their effects on staff health; the non-implementation of the AWBM; inadequate communication with students; bad management around teaching cover; lack of time for research, conference attendance, CPD and formal qualifications; and lack of clarity with regards to promotion criteria.
The ARU Branch Executive has sent a letter to Professor Jackie Kelly, conveying these issues and demanding that management commit to an action plan to resolve them.
You can read our full letter here.
ARU Branch Executive
At the ARU UCU Branch Meeting on September 26th, 2024, the Branch adopted the following motion:
“This branch NOTES the wave of riots and Islamophobic attacks which followed the demonstration of 20,000 organised by the fascist ‘Tommy Robinson’ in July.
It further NOTES that ‘Robinson’ has called another demonstration on October 26th in central London and that Stand up to Racism, with the support of the TUC, has called a counter demonstration.
This branch BELIEVES that combatting racism and fascism is a Trades Union issue, because racism is reprehensible, because it divides us and because, as Pastor Niemöller put it, ‘then they came for the Trades Unionists.’
This branch BELIEVES that it is essential, in light of the rising tide of far right and fascist activity across Europe, to ensure that the October 26th counter demonstration outnumbers that of the fascists.
This branch RESOLVES to support the Oct 26th counter demonstration and to actively urge our members to attend.
This branch further RESOLVES to make a donation of £100 each to Harlow and Cambridge SUTR groups, the two nearest groups to ARU running transport to the demo on the 26th, to help fund that transport and in addition RESOLVES to affiliate to SUTR nationally.”
We are alarmed to hear reports of multiple failures by university managers to organise properly the planning of workloads for the coming acadmic year.
We have heard of failure to incorporate research time in AWBMs, along with the absence of “headroom”, and the complete omission of the 185 hours “independent scholarly activity”, which is protected under the terms of the Collective Agreement signed by the VC and UCU in May 2022.
The agreement was reached in order to safeguard the wellbeing of academic staff and to allow for the timely and efficient planning of workloads.
If colleagues witness the failure to uphold or are pressurised into violating the terms of the agreement we urge you contact the branch immediately.
ARU Branch Executive
At Anglia Ruskin University, we are now presented with a crisis and a scandal, so severe and far reaching, that we must call into question the willingness and capacity of university leaders to fulfil their obligations to our community.
There have been shocking revelations of a £50,000 donation, of questionable legal status, to the Conservative Party.
For further information, read our statement in full here.
ARU UCU Branch Executive
In his e-mail from April 29th, 2024, the Vice-Chancellor noted the problematic situation with international student recruitment, stated the need to improve the efficiency of our work, and drew our attention to several workstreams that are looking to make changes to our processes, delivery of professional services, academic portfolios and workloads, etc.
While we recognize the challenges in our sector, we find the Vice-Chancellor’s statements problematic in a number of ways. In our last Joint Consultative and Negotiating Group (JCNG) meeting on March 18th, where these issues were discussed, and subsequently:
a) We have not received any documentary evidence for the Trade Unions to review in relation to the implied lack of efficiency in the work of ARU staff,
b) We have not received any investment analysis for the various areas of our University, that clearly set out cases for efficiency savings,
c) We have not received any workforce planning analysis that would show what exactly the University is planning to do in terms of our workloads and our work-life balance,
d) The Vice-Chancellor did not state in his e-mail any of the highly problematic proposals for academic workforce planning that came up in the JCNG meeting, such as the introduction of teaching-only roles; and intrusive, micro-managerial inspections of how academics spend their time,
e) The Vice-Chancellor has denied our request for a local pay uplift, despite the University’s stated commitment to staff wellbeing, and despite the cost-of-living crisis chipping away (yet again) at our real incomes.
The Vice-Chancellor keeps insisting on everyone needing to tighten their belts. Yet, the Vice-Chancellor’s Group has received significant pay uplifts in recent years, there is a massive spend planned for the Creative Quarter, costly Agents’ Conferences are hosted in exotic locations, and there is a planned budget-busting staff party in June. These spending decisions not only seem insensitive, but are also confusing and contradictory to the stated need to tighten our belts in one way or another.
Both ARU UCU and ARU Unison recognize the issues in our sector, but we believe that a modest reallocation of funds to staff salaries, the maintenance of a work-life balance, and of a normal pace of work, are all perfectly feasible, even within the current context. We remain committed to working constructively with management to find genuinely consensual solutions in the spirit of collective bargaining and negotiation.
You can find ARU UCU’s and ARU Unison’s full joint statement after the last JCNG meeting here. You can also visit ARU Unison’s website here.
ARU UCU Branch Executive and ARU Unison Branch Committee
On Thursday, March 14th, ARU UCU met with ARU management for the third time for negotiations to resolve the ongoing official dispute about last year’s October proposal to evict colleagues from their offices in the Helmore building on the Cambridge campus.
UCU welcomes the commitment of the university to reset and restart the consultation process about the shape and viability of the proposed development of the Creative Quarter, the building project which has given rise to the proposed restructuring of workspaces.
However, thus far we have yet to hear concrete proposals from University management to address the full range of concerns our members expressed about the proposed eviction. We are also concerned that the decision of the university to forge contracts with developers and establish timetables for work to commence, prior to reaching agreement with UCU, is exposing our community to costs which we can ill afford. Nevertheless, we are grateful that, at yesterday’s meeting, university management denied categorically the claim that UCU is somehow responsible for the delays in consultation and development, along with the consequent loss of revenue which will follow.
Our negotiators have made it clear that we are open to compromise. As we have said before, UCU is not in the business of subsidising failure. It is imperative for our community at ARU that this dispute is resolved as quickly as possible.
As acknowledged by senior leaders in the university, the status quo will prevail until such point as a resolution is found.
UCU ARU Branch Executive
