OPEN UNIVERSITY BRANCH OF UNIVERSITY & COLLEGE UNION
minutes of the executive meeting held 8th december 2009Present: / John Bennett, Chris Bollom, Alan Carr, Pauline Collins, Judy Ekins, Sue Hawthorne, Bruce Heil, Phil Hill, John James, Malcolm Jenner, Lesley Kane, Mike McNulty, Bethan Norfor, June Payne, John Peters, Peter Piper, Eric Wade & Roger Walters (Chair).
In attendance: / Paddy Cooper, UCU Regional Branch Development Organiser, Lydia Richards, UCU Regional Official & Deb Shann
Apologies: / David Knowles
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/membership of the newly elected executive
Roger welcomed the 2 new Exec members: Phil Hill and Bruce Heil as well as Lydia & Paddy from UCU regional office.
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/minutes of last meeting
The minutes of the meeting of 23 November 09 were agreed as a true record.3 /
CONFIDENTIALITY OF MINUTES
Minute 4.2 in the minutes of 23 Nov 09 executive meeting needed to remain confidential.4 /
MATTERS ARISING
Minute 4.1, Allowances for Office bearers, eg Assistant Deans – Alan has been to a ACAS conciliation meeting. ACAS had made a recommendation to both parties which met UCU's essential point that these allowances were a negotiable item according to the procedure agreement and had made some recommendations about backdating allowances and future variations. Alan considered that the outcome was a very satisfactory one and recommended acceptance of the ACAS recommendations subject to the University also approving these.5 /
update on officers’ reports since last meeting
5.1 / Branch President updateEstates Redundancies – it was the first item on the JNC agenda and there has now been a formal consultation meeting. Phase 2 of the redundancy procedure states there must now be a 3 month period before any compulsory redundancies can be considered. Two of the four engineers had applied for voluntary severance and their applications had been accepted so there was no longer an issue concerning them. In relation to project managers, the deadline for staff to apply for voluntary severance was Monday 30th November but the university is prepared to consider late applications and any changes of intentions up to Friday 11th December. The whole process has been handled badly, and had breached the agreed procedures. The union had made it clear to management that recurrence would lead to a formal dispute involving industrial action. The Estates voluntary severance package is probably below the national average & Alan is seeking information about what other institutions are offering.
JJ raised the issue of AL redundancy where 100-150 are being made redundant each year. HR send a letter to Lesley with the number of ALs who are getting a potential redundancy letter – Lesley to send this onto Deb who can look for UCU members. The branch should then write to those members who were made redundant and offer them UCU retired membership and ask them to tell us of their redundancy experience, how were they treated, did they apply for other posts etc? / ac
lk/ds
/ AL negotiations – Minute restricted for reasons of confidentiality.
Researchers Terms and conditions
In the light of consultation with affected members, we have told the university that we are not willing to accept their proposal to change titles of research staff as they find the term Research Associates inappropriate and demeaning.
HSC Academic Related Staff Review
This review had now been successfully completed.
Social Sciences Academic related staff Review
Following consultation with members the union would take back views on certain unsatisfactory aspects of this review, especially the accommodation plans, to a further consultation meeting shortly.
Salary Sacrifice
The university had refused to re-open negotiations and so there was now an impasse. The boycott of so called OpenSmart would therefore continue.
CDSA
There were some indications of willingness by the university to abandon unit level schemes and stick to the one agreed and university wide scheme, but details remained to be sorted out. It was likely that there would be a change in the rewards policy so that staff who had not had a CDSA would only be ineligible for consideration for a reward if they had unreasonably refused to have a CDSA and not when there had not been a CDSA for reasons outside their control including their management not arranging one.
National negotiations
The Higher Education Committee had decided to draw a line under the 2009/2010 pay negotiations but continued to reject the derisory final offer of 0.5%. Instead efforts would be concentrated from now on, on a 2010 /2011 claim and there would be a special sector conference in late January or early February to consider this. This would necessitate a special branch meeting for motions to this conference.
Regions/Nations terminology
Roger advised that we should take care to use appropriate terminology in the Spark and elsewhere in relation to regions and nations and not call Wales, Scotland and Ireland regions nor refer to the UK as a nation. This would require changes to rules in relation to the tiles of what were currently the Regional Academic staff and the Regional Academic Related staff officers.
Consultation on the cuts
Roger was to attend the first formal consultation meeting shortly and the Vice Chancellor was about to send out a video announcement to all staff.
5.2 / Secretary’s Report update
Lesley explained the new type of student support being adopted on SK121 where ALs have been made redundant and there will be new Study Advisors who are self-employed consultants. There is 1 presentation of the course left with standard ALs. The broader issues are that ALs are being made redundant when some of the work they do will still be ongoing, and whether these study advisor contracts genuinely meet the criteria for self-employment?
Anti-Casualisation Committee – Exec agreed that the branch should nominate Jean Crocker to this committee
We must monitor the ending of Fixed-term contracts.
Spark – thanks to Deb for producing it. The treasurer is investigating the cost of producing Spark in hard copy and then posting out to some or all members. / lk
6 /
cooptions to the executive
The Executive received a paper from Roger about various unsuccessful election candidates and others whose nominations had not been submitted or had got lost. The executive was advised that it could co-opt up to 5 members. After discussion the executive agreed to co-opt:Eric Bowers, Meridian, Tony Nixon, Ceri Phillips and Ian Stevenson.
7 /
appointments to committees & groups
The Executive received a paper about groups and positions to which appointments were to be made and agreed on the recommendation of Roger to appoint:JNC – Roger Walters, Alan Carr, Lesley Kane & David Knowles
ALWG – Mike is standing down and it was agreed that Bruce join this group.
ALNG – Roger Walters, Lesley Kane, David Knowles and Mike McNulty.
Bullying & Harassment sub group – Roger Walters, Maria McCrea and Bethan Norfor.
Working group on Appointments procedure – Roger Walters & Alan Carr
Working group on Flexible working – appointments to be deferred to the next meeting since the decisions on co-options had an implication for decisions on these.
Casework sub group – Roger Walters, John Bennett, Alan Carr, Lesley Kane, June Payne, John Peters and Eric Wade.
Recruitment sub group – Meridian as convenor, Pauline Collins, Judy Ekins, John James and June Payne.
Health & Safety reps – currently Lesley Kane, Carol Lennie and Phil Hill are our branch H&S reps. We need more, especially someone at MK.
Then the Executive considered additional possible groups and agreed:
· in principle to establish an Equality working group with proposals for membership to comeback to the next meeting.
· to establish a Study Leave working group comprising Judy Ekins as convenor, Tony Nixon and Ian Stevenson.
· in principle to establish a Workload Protection working group in the new year. / jb/rw
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CHAIRING THE EXECUTIVE MEETINGS
It was agreed in principle that the executive should elect a Chair and Vice Chair once the rules had been amended to allow for this. Lydia would draft formal rule changes. / lr9
/ NEXT YEAR’S MEETINGS CALENDAR – see Paper 5 for the list of dates submitted in The executive received a proposed calendar of meetings and noted that:· there would probably be a special general meeting in January for business for the special sector conference;
· Lesley would circulate possible dates for the away day in February and
· the June exec and general meeting would need to be moved to a slightly later date, possibly 17th June 2010. / lk
10 / FOLLOW UP THE AWAY DAY DECISIONS
The executive received the away day notes and agreed:
· Officers’ reports will be requested 1½ week’s before an Exec meeting so Deb can send out all reports in 1 email with the Agenda a week before each Exec meeting.
· That if the minutes are issued soon after the Exec meeting, then there’s no need for a list of actions as these are listed on the minutes.
· Email protocol document – Peter Hamilton & Dela Fazel to be chased up.
· That Roger should discuss with June the idea of a meeting for central academic related staff and bring back proposals to the next meeting.
· Lydia needs to send Judy some example surveys that have been used at other institutions so that we could survey all of our members. / ds
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11 / REPORT FROM CASEWORK GROUP MEETING
It has been decided that we do need a Casework log form, in order to gather the case information in a standard format, this will be issued by Roger with further guidance notes.
The group decided that there was no need for a flow chart but Lydia has sent Deb a copy of another institution’s Casework procedure – to be reviewed at next casework group meeting. / rw
12 / NOTES FROM RECRUITMENT GROUP MEETING
Pauline suggested that we need a clearer recruitment strategy, drawing on previous discussions on recruitment and with a 5 year plan and objectives.
Phil Hill is interested to join this group.
What is DAN? – decided that we have an article in next Spark on what is DAN and Lydia has already asked Martin Whelton at UCU head office to send this info.
Paddy Cooper to be invited to the next Recruitment group meeting.
It was suggested that we consider to run recruitment sessions at lunch-times in the regional/national centres.
It was agreed that we get a 5 year plan ready by the Feb 2010 away day with tasks for the whole Exec to carry out. Pauline to report back to Meridian on what was discussed at the meeting.
Next issue of Spark to list all AL reps with names, plus all Regional & MK Departmental reps with their names.
Casework surgeries – if we do run these again then there must be follow-up to make sure the member’s issues get resolved/investigated. / recruit-ment group
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/ STRATEGIC PRIORITIES FOR NEXT 12 MONTHSThe Executive agreed on the following strategic priorities for the next 12months:
Industrial relations issues
1. To take all possible steps to avoid compulsory redundancies and to impress on the university that we will not entertain the possibility of such;
2. to complete the negotiations on the AL contract with substantial progress in the direction of comparable pay and conditions for internal staff and for ALs.
Communications with members
1. To develop the Spark and to produce more short editions more often;
2. to improve other communications with members between issues of the Spark, and in particular to keep members informed of key issues discussed at the executive and to encourage two way communications with members.
Organisational issues
1. To substantially increase our membership through developing a more public face and more recruitment activity;
2. to develop a more collective approach to casework.
/ rw
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/ ANY OTHER BUSINESSAlan informed the meeting that regional staff in the Centre for widening participation have workload issues and their Terms & conditions were meant to change from Academic-related to Academic and this has not happened yet.
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/ DATE OF NEXT MEETING19th January 2010 – room & time of meeting to be confirmed
/ ds/lk
Next year’s meetings calendar 2010
Tuesday 19 Jan proposed Exec meeting 1, venue tbc
Tuesday 19 Jan proposed Special branch meeting
28 Jan ALWG meeting
FEBRUARY
Branch away day event?
4th Feb 3-5pm ALNG
5 Feb - AL reps meeting OU London region
12th Feb HEC
23rd Feb JNC meeting
MARCH
1 Mar - ALNG meeting
Monday 15 Mar Exec meeting 2 in CMR 01
Monday 15 Mar proposed branch meeting 1- motions to Congress
19 Mar = NEC
APRIL
16 April - HEC
21 April - AL reps meeting OU London region
Tuesday 27 April - Exec meeting 3 CMR 11
Tuesday 27th April - General meeting to do Congress amendments
MAY
17 May - ALWG meeting
30 May-1 June UCU National Congress
JUNE
Tuesday 17th June proposed Exec meeting 4
22nd June JNC meeting
26 June - AL reps meeting OU London region
JULY
Tuesday 13th July proposed Exec meeting 5
SEPTEMBER
Tuesday 28 Sept proposed Exec meeting 6
Tuesday 28 Sept - proposed general meeting 3
NOVEMBER
Tuesday 23 Nov proposed Exec meeting 7
Tuesday 23 Nov proposed AGM
DECEMBER
Tuesday 14th Dec proposed Exec meeting 8
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