Happy New Year! We hope the new academic year has started well for you. In this Bulletin:
BGM Reminder
2024-25 Meetings
Issues Raised at OMM
Block Teaching (“Project Next”)
Local Subscriptions
Extra Day of Annual Leave
Impact of VR
BGM Reminder
The first Branch General Meeting of the year takes place on 16 October, 1.30-3.00 via Teams. Remember that BGMs and AGMs are official union meetings and you are legally entitled to time off to attend them. Senior mgmt have promised that no teaching sessions or other staff meetings will be scheduled to clash, but some managers do seem to forget this, so please let us know if you encounter any difficulties.
Members for whom we have a UCLan email address have been sent a calendar appointment. Others please join via the link we have emailed.
2024-25 Meetings
Dates for your diaries:
Branch General Meeting: 22 January 2025
Annual General Meeting: 23 April 2025
Both 1.30-3.00 via Teams. Links and calendar appointments will be sent shortly before each meeting.
Open Member Meetings: Informal, no-agenda meetings for members to bring any concerns or ideas to the Branch Committee. These will be hybrid meetings via Teams and in person in Vernon VE050, at 1.00-2.00pm on 27 November, 5 March & 28 May.
Issues Raised at OMM
Thank you to those members who came to the first Open Member Meeting of the new academic year. Members discussed the new local subscriptions and how they might be used (see Bulletin item below). Members also raised the impact of VR on colleagues remaining at UCLan, and the plans for block teaching (also see Bulletin items below).
Block Teaching (“Project Next”)
Management are engaged in discussing with UCU their ‘Project Next’ plans, which involve moving courses to block delivery (four consecutive 30-credit six-week modules delivered over up to three days per week) if it is suitable to do so. UCU have insisted that for each course there must be direct unmediated discussion between Management and the course team to determine whether the move to block delivery is suitable for the course. If those discussions have not yet happened for the course teams you belong to, then the course’s inclusion in block delivery will not have been decided yet. If you encounter any Management communication at odds with this position, please contact UCU with details.
Local Subscriptions
Following the decisions taken at the AGM in April and communicated in the May and June Branch Bulletins, our new local subscription has started being collected with the September payment. We plan to build up a significant fund that can be used to support members facing hardship as a result of industrial action in defence of local jobs. The decisions (setting up the subscription, and setting the contribution rates) will be reviewed at the 2025 AGM, where the Treasurer will present some alternative scenarios for how the money might be used.
Extra Day of Annual Leave
Management have announced that for the current academic year, staff will be given an extra day of annual leave. For academic staff, this means that your target annual workload total (1581 hours, pro rata) should be reduced by 7.4 hours (pro rata).
Impact of VR
Members at the OMM (mentioned above) expressed many concerns about the impact of VR on those left behind. In some cases, this has meant the sudden departure of people who have been valued colleagues and friends for many years: a situation similar to bereavement. Added to this is the stress of finding ways to redistribute their work, keeping the students happy while resisting mgmt pressure to take on unreasonable workloads. If you encounter the latter, please contact UCU. If you need support with the former, please consider contacting the staff wellbeing services listed at https://msuclanac.sharepoint.com/sites/StaffWellbeingandSupport or the Education Support Network https://www.educationsupport.org.uk/
UCLan UCU Branch Committee