Casualised Members’ Annual Meeting, 22 Feb;

The UK-wide annual meeting of staff on casualised contracts will take place on Sat 22 Feb in London, with a hybrid attendance option: https://www.ucu.org.uk/cascontractsmeeting. We encourage all casualised members (e.g. GTAs, fixed-term or finite-funded staff) to self-register for the meeting. We will nominate representatives at the next members’ meeting. Self-registered delegates have the same status and voting rights at the annual meeting. Please get in contact with the Exec if you require financial support in order to attend. It would be great to see as many of our casualised members there as possible.

Anti-Racist Education Network with Prof. Gary Younge, 30 Jan 2025, 3-4:30pm

The MIE Anti-Racist Education Network warmly invites you to our upcoming seminar on 30 January 2025. We are honoured to host Professor Gary Younge as our guest speaker.

Gary is an award-winning author, broadcaster and a Professor of Sociology at the University of Manchester. Formerly a columnist and editor-at-large at The Guardian, he is an editorial board member of the Nation magazine, the Alfred Knobler Fellow for Type Media and winner of the 2023 Orwell Prize for Journalism. 

At the age of just 24, Gary was sent to report for the Guardian on South Africa’s first democratic elections where he accompanied Nelson Mandela on the election trail. Over the ensuing three decades, he has had a ringside seat during the biggest events to impact the Black diaspora: from joining revellers on the southside of Chicago during Obama’s victory and entering New Orleans days after Hurricane Katrina, to interviewing such luminaries as Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Maya Angelou and Stormzy.

He has witnessed how much change is possible and the power of systems to thwart those aspirations, which he recounts in his powerful new book, Dispatches from the Diaspora

We invite you to join us for this inspiring conversation with Gary Younge on 30 January 2025. Please use the following link to book your ticket:

 https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/umit-yildiz/t-vvgvoqd . 

We look forward to seeing you there.

Where: Ellen Wilkinson Building,  A2-6

When: 3pm – 4.30pm

Important members’ meeting: Wed 29 Jan, 12:30-14:00;

There are a number of important matters in the agenda below. Two may require us to begin formal proceedings against the Employer, whose success may turn to a degree on the strength of support that we give them; so we need more than ever to ask for your views.

In turn:

  • Our members among the Library staff have been pursuing a collective grievance with support from the Exec. Ümit and one of our affected members will give an update.
  • The Exec believes that the Employer has embarked on a plan to act unlawfully in violation of the Statutes. Recently Exec members were informed—with no consultation—that the provision in the Statutes guaranteeing the presence of lay members on certain panels would be weakened. The Whistleblowing Procedure has been invoked to raise a legal concern. As there is a parallel industrial case, Daniel Maguire, who supports from UCU Regional, encourages us to begin the first stages of formal dispute. (He will join us briefly if possible, depending on a casework meeting.) See attachment for more.

The agenda:

  1. President’s update, inc. Dignity at Work policy;
  2. Library staff collective grievance update: UMUCU strategy;
  3. Lay governors on panels violating of Statutes; start of formal dispute;
    1. Motion.
  4. Unite–UCU dispute [Update from Unite member]; 
  5. Further Motions:
    1. BDS motion proposal;
    2. Stand Up to Racism motion;
  6. Know your Rights! Online session, 05 Feb 2025 – 12:30-13:30;
  7. Report from David Swanson on meeting with Salford & MMU;
  8. AOB.

UCU Holocaust Memorial Day webinar, 27 January 2025, 12:00-13:00;

UCU commemorates Holocaust Memorial Day (HMD), observed annually on 27 January. It does so in memory of the six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust and the millions of people killed by Nazi persecution and in subsequent genocides in Bosnia, Cambodia, Darfur and Rwanda, and in order to challenge hatred and persecution in the UK today.

Also targeted were political opponents and trade unionists, Black people, people marginalised as ‘criminals’ and ‘asocials’, queer people, Jehovah witnesses, disabled people, population of occupied Eastern Europe, as well as other groups.

Register for a webinar led by the eminent expert, Professor Zoë Waxman introduced by UCU general secretary, Jo Grady by Monday 27 January at 09:00.

Date: Monday 27 January 2025, 12:00-13:00

Details: In this short talk, Zoë Waxman, Professor of Holocaust History at the University of Oxford, will explore the pre-history of the Holocaust, identifying the ways in which the Nazis prepared the German population for the mass murder of the Jewish people. By separating them from their neighbours, by normalising violence, and by institutionalising discrimination, they created the conditions in which genocide became almost unstoppable.

Questions: Professor Waxman welcomes pre-submitted questions. Please send these to eqadmin@ucu.org.uk. There will also be the opportunity to ask questions on the day.

Members’ meeting this Wed 27 Nov 12.30 on governance and 2035 workers’ strategy

Members’ meeting: on governance and 2035 workers’ strategy

At this week’s union meeting, Wed 27 Nov, 12:30, Zoom [link below], we will be launching our own Workers’ 2035 Strategy Survey, with most of the meeting devoted to discussing university governance. UoM’s governance structures are severely dysfunctional, with significant consequences for us all, such as the SEP. This meeting is to explore ways to drive positive changes towards democratising our university (and universities more broadly).

          Our own Prof. Steve Jones will lead the discussion. He is currently leading a project on university governance, funded by the Campaign for the Defence of the British University. There will be plenty of time for questions and contributions. These two links contains some food for thought:

https://wonkhe.com/blogs/cultures-of-university-governance-need-urgent-attention

https://wonkhe.com/blogs/cultures-of-university-governance-need-urgent-attention