As many of you will have heard in today’s (7 December) Kent UCU meeting, the UCU Committee are working hard at this critical moment for the University to hold EG to account about Kent 2030. This includes our contribution to numerous Kent 2030 Programme Board meetings, the work of several of us on sub-JSNCC, our campaign to encourage the University to think again on compulsory modules and the shape of the academic year, and our ongoing efforts to challenge management to provide greater transparency and honesty to staff (this resulted in yesterday’s Kent 2030 & University finances update, which we pushed for vigorously). We are also increasing the level of caseworker support available (with special thanks to Sian and Owen for all the one-on-one work they do with members). It has been an exhausting term. We encourage you to keep in touch with us, contact Kester (krichardson-dawes@UCU.ORG.UK) if you need caseworker support, and give us your feedback about Kent2030 so that we can feed it into the University’s process.
Even as all this work is ongoing about the local issues, the National UCU is continuing its discussions about the recent UCU Rising campaign. There will be a national Branch Delegate Meeting next week to hear representations from delegates from the local branches concerning your views about the national strategy in the fight on pay, the gender pay gap, workloads, and insecure employment. From the local Committee, Elane Heffernan has kindly agreed to represent Kent UCU at the national Branch Delegate Meeting.
Elane and I therefore invite you to come along to a feedback meeting to offer us your views about the national UCU Rising strategy. We will be available to meet and talk to you from 4-5pm in Cornwallis North West Seminar Room 7, on Tuesday 12 December. Please put it in your diaries. The feedback you give us will directly inform Elane’s representations on behalf of Kent UCU to the Branch Delegate Meeting.
If you’d like to think about this in advance, below are the questions sent from National UCU which will be the items of discussion at the Branch Delegate Meeting. We are soliciting your views on the following points:
- How do we involve members in developing the 2024/5 claim?
- Through regional meetings
- Through branch meetings
- Through branch delegate meetings
- Other
- In building the longer-term strategy and reflecting the results of the member survey, what priorities do members want to include?
- Pay
- Pay related issues – Workload, casualisation, equality pay gaps
- Different types of industrial action
- How members are engaged
- Balance of local and national bargaining
- Building a stronger union
- Other