Queen's UCU

Latest Pay offer

At the third New JNCHES meeting on Wednesday 8 May, the national employers marginally improved their opening offer to 0.8%.

 read more including UCU's response and advice to members

Anti-Homophobia Week 13 – 17 May and International Day of Action Against Homophobia (IDAHO) 17 May

Anti-Homophobia week starts on Monday 13 May and runs until 17 May.  17 May has been designated International Day of Action against Homophobia (IDAHO).  To mark IDAHO, the ICTU LGBT committee is asking all affiliates to circulate information and ask their members to wear purple ribbons or something purple into work.

 More information on IDAHO is available here:
http://www.dayagainsthomophobia.org/-IDAHO-english,41-
Anti-Homophobia week will be launched by  The Rainbow Project, HereNI and Cara-Friend
At Belfast City Hall on Mon 13^th May at 2.30pm sharp

The Lord Mayor, Rt Hon Gavin Robinson, will launch this week followed by addresses from

Junior Minister Jennifer McCann and

Chief Commissioner, Equality Commission for N. Ireland,

Mr Michael Wardlow

Please be seated by 2.15pm as we will start sharp at 2.30pm

Congress 2013

UCU's Annual Congress 2013 will be held at Brighton Centre from Wednesday 29 - Friday 31 May 2013

This will include meetings of the Higher Education and Further Education Sector Conferences. Sector conference meetings will take place on Wednesday 29 May.

Papers for congress  (including motions and composited motions) can be found at http://www.ucu.org.uk/congress2013

Serious attack on UCU - Sign the Petition

Dave Muritu, UCU’s branch secretary at Halesowen college in the West Midlands has been dismissed from his job following what has been described as a ‘kangaroo court’ at which the college management failed to follow their own disciplinary procedures and failed to provide evidence to support their allegations. 

Please take a moment to sign the petition to support Dave and his colleagues at Halesowen:
http://tinyurl.com/Halesowen4

More....

“THE FUTURE OF THE PUBLIC UNIVERSITY”

"The Future of the Public University" by Professor John Holmwood, Nottingham University and Campaign for the Public University

was held at 5.30 pm on Thursday 29th November 2012.
in Queen’s University, Main Site: Peter Froggatt Centre, PFC Room02/017.

A PDF copy of his presentation can be downloaded.

John is an influential critic of private universities and as a defender of publically funded universities is co-founder of the Campaign for the Public University.  He is editor of “A Manifesto for the Public University” (Bloomsbury 2011)

Workload and Stress Survey

Queens UCU are carrying out a workload and stress survey for QUB academic and academic related staff based on the diarying excerise that we requested you to do during the week 19th November to 25th November. The survey will be usable from Wed 5th December by which time you will have received a password to give you access to it.  Please proceed to to the survey page.

UCU 2012 Anti-Stress and Bullying Week

The week beginning Monday 19 November 2012 is the UCU 2012 Anti-Stress and Bullying Week. This week forms a part of the UCU national workload campaign.

 The aims for the week are:

• to raise members awareness about stress and bullying;
• to investigate the scale of the problem in your workplace;
• to highlight local results (where available) from UCU’s 2012 stress survey;
• and identify and develop strategies for negotiating to overcome employer poor practice. 

Later we will contact you with a link to an online survey regarding workload and stress.

There is a General Meeting for all members at 1.00 pm on Wednesday 28^th November - Physics Bell Lecture Theatre that will seek views on the stress and bullying data emerging.

Earlier you will have been aware of the publication by UCU  of the stress survey results by FE college and HE institution relating to workload demands and hours of work.
Now the  2012 occupational stress survey – the Relationships stressor in Higher Education is available:See this at: http://www.ucu.org.uk/media/pdf/5/m/ucu_occstress12_herelationships.pdf.
This includes data on bullying. Unfortunately Queens has done very badly and marginally worse than the comparable survey on 2008.
On the relationships stressor Queens is in the lowest group Group D:  Well-being lowest 20 / stress level highest 20.
With regard to bullying 12% of QUB members responding indicated that they were always or often bullied.
This is a very disappointing result and one of the worst in Higher Education.

Cartoons on how to get a promotion

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxRKEjt-O64&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WH9c3rbnrz0

USS dispute - Restarted talks lead to suspension of work-to-contract action

UCU have proposed to employers that the suspension takes effect on Wednesday 26 September 2012. Click for details

Survey on Diversity and Student Evaluations of Teaching

The  survey of all QUB teaching staff on the issue of Diversity and Student Evaluations of Teaching has now been completed. The resulting report is now available in the Local Issues section of the website.

Justice for Columbia

Meeting at 5.30 on Monday 23rd April 2013  in the offices of Unite the Union 26-34 Antirm Road

Despite peace talks beginning between the Colombian Government and the FARC guerrillas last November, dangers for the opposition and peace activists have increased in recent months. Last year saw 20 trade union members and 69 human rights activists murdered. The Patriotic March , a new mass movement grouping unions, peasant farmers, indigenous and others is calling for peace with social justice, for a ceasefire during the talks and for civil society to have a voice in the process. They have already had many members murdered and imprisoned. Despite the repression they have faced they are organising people across the country building the biggest progressive movement seen in Colombia for the last 20 years.  Justice for Colombia (JFC) is building support across the UK and Ireland for the peace process, and Northern Ireland trade unions are playing a crucial role in the campaign. Come and hear from some of the leaders of the Patriotic March as well as from trade union leaders who recently took part in a cross-party delegation to Colombia.