Present candidates for election; In-person social from 5 pm

Announce branch committee election date, AGM; In-person social from 5 pm

In person social from 5

In person social from 5

We will be holding a Branch meeting on Monday 9th January at 11am to discuss industrial action moving forward, including issues regarding strike action and boycott.

Find a link for the meeting in your inboxes – please note the correct Zoom link is the second one emailed out.

Background information:

In November, the UCU Higher Education Committee voted for a Marking & Assessment boycott to begin in January, and indefinite strike action to begin in February, as part of our current mandate for industrial action.

There are differing opinions in the union about how to escalate our dispute given employers are refusing to put any improved pay offer on the table. The General Secretary Jo Grady has proposed a strategy of 2 days + 3 days strike action in February, 2 days + 3 days strike action in March, a re-ballot (the current mandate expires 20th April), further strike days in April and a marking boycott to begin in the summer term. Watch her video here.

You can read the case for indefinite strike action put by Zara Dinnen and James Eastwood, Co-Chairs of Queen Mary UCU branch here: How to Stop a University. UCU Left also put out a statement in favour of indefinite strike action.

There are different proposals for what indefinite strike action could consist of. E.g. there is a proposal for ongoing strike action on 4 days a week with the 1 working day rotating. Read the case for this here/ watch the video.

This is the option favoured by the Kingston UCU branch committee. We will be voting on a motion about this option, as follows:

This Branch believes:

1. In order to win action needs to be hard hitting and with no set end date.
2. Action must be affordable to members and the union
3. Continuous action may result in 100% loss of pay.
4. Striking for 4 days per week should result in less than 57% loss of net pay for most members.

This Branch resolves:

• To call on HEC to call strike action for 4 days per week, with 1 day per week worked in rotation for an indefinite period.
• Notifications for first 5 weeks to be sent followed by notifications extending the action after 2 weeks of action and indefinitely as required thereafter until the disputes are settled or members vote to cease.

We will also be voting on the following motion related to action short of a strike:

This Branch believes:

1. In order to win action needs to be impactful, whilst allowing us to best focus on our students.
2. Action Short of Strike (ASOS) must be escalated in response to the lack of meaningful negotiation by employers
3. Workloads currently impact our ability to do our jobs.
4. One aspect of our workload that takes away time from our students and our responsibilities is attending meetings.
5. Attending meetings is a voluntary activity, outside of our core roles in educating students (undergraduate, postgraduate, research); it is therefore within the scope of ASOS as has been indicated in advance.

This Branch resolves:

• To call on HEC to call an escalation of our Action Short of Strike to include not attending meetings for an indefinite period.

Which course of action we take will be discussed at a Branch Delegate Meeting (BDM) on 10th January before the next Higher Education Committee meeting on 12th January. It is therefore really important for members to come to this meeting to share your views so our delegates to the BDM can represent them.

Further articles on this debate have been collated by Edinburgh UCU: https://www.ucuedinburgh.org.uk/indefinite-or-not

At this meeting on Friday 13th May 1pm (on Zoom) we will be discussing the marking & assessment boycott to be launched on 23rd May. Please check inboxes for the link

Branch delegates will feedback from the UCU branch delegates briefing on the 10^th May and we will discuss local plans for the boycott and further strike action.

Members in each department should nominate 1 or 2 people to act as a departmental contact for the boycott, to begin coordinating conversations with their colleagues and feed questions back to the committee so that the branch’s deliberations are member-led.

Join our first Open Air Branch Meeting on Wednesday 2^nd March at 1pm Penrhyn Road main entrance picket and on Zoom (see linktr.ee/kingstonucu for link)

We will be following the example of other universities during strike action and holding our branch meeting outdoors!

The meeting will be held to discuss each of the Four Fights, specifically to gather your experiences, suggestions, and action points from our members to pursue the Four Fights here at Kingston.

The Four Fights are:

1. Equality and ending the gender, ethnicity and disability pay gaps in the university sector
2. Workload crisis that is damaging colleagues’ mental and physical wellbeing
3. Casual and fixed-term contracts leading to insecure jobs
4. Pay which has decreased by 20% in real terms over the last 10 years

The fifth agenda item is:

1. Oppressive management tactics at other universities – update on some of the punitive and anti-union measures taken at other universities and how we can act collectively to support colleagues across the UK.

All branch members are welcome! Remember you have the right to attend union meetings regardless of industrial action!