Category Archives: Uncategorised
UCU Workload Survey
This week sees the re-launch of the UCU workload survey
Excessive workloads are an issue that affects members across post-16 education. Staff working across the further and higher sectors, in adult education and in prisons, are faced with ever-increasing demands and ever-decreasing resources.
When we surveyed members in 2021, we found that staff in HE and FE were working an average of two unpaid days per week.
Many of the biggest issues that members are facing in the workplace–casualisation, redundancies, low and unequal pay, and of course stress and mental ill-health–are connected to excessive workloads and long working hours.
The UCU workload survey is a longitudinal survey, last run in 2021, which examines the size and intensity of workloads across the sectors, as well as how and why they are changing. The survey will provide valuable evidence to support local and national campaigns and negotiations.
We are asking you to complete the survey and share with your colleagues (members and non-members). The survey will take around 25 mins to complete, and respondents can enter a prize draw for 5 x £50 vouchers.
Please take a minute or two to complete the UCU workload survey and share it with colleagues (UCU members and non-members).
Message from a UMUCU member to Duncan Ivison following his response to the recent Supreme Court ruling
“President/Vice-Chancellor Ivison,
Your message sent on 25 April Our resolute commitment to equality and inclusion – A message following the Supreme Court ruling last week (16 April) is fundamentally inadequate, as it entirely fails to address the very immediate practical concerns of trans staff and students on campus. The ruling has legal implications for sex-segregated toilet facilities, with guidance circulating that would prohibit trans people from using either men’s or women’s facilities. I understand that there is a great deal of uncertainty surrounding the implementation of policy following the ruling, and that sorting through the guidance and determining the University’s response takes time. However, as a trans member of staff, I cannot wait for “the coming weeks” — I will need to use the toilet whilst at work much sooner than that.
If I use a sex-segregated toilet on campus tomorrow, what actions (if any) could or would be taken against me by the University? What enforcement mechanisms are currently in place? Again, I understand the current state of uncertainty around the legal issues here, but in the interim I do need to know what precisely I am risking in popping to the nearest loo between meetings, so that I can weigh that risk accordingly. This isn’t a question of “feeling anxious or concerned”, it’s information that I need to make decisions about my schedule and time mangement in fulfilling my contractual obligations at work. I am aware that there are some toilet facilities on campus that are not sex-segregated, and therefore unambiguous in legal status — where can I find a list of the locations of these facilities? (As these are facilities that already exist, requiring no change in policy, the message sent should have included this information among the resources listed. The fact that the only guidance offered to trans colleagues was surrounding emotional/mental health shows a clear disregard for the actual, practical realities of inclusion, beyond vague commitment to an abstract ideal.)”
UCU statement following Supreme Court ruling on the legal definition of a woman