An update regarding the current state of play in relation to our ongoing engagement with HR and management.
We will be holding another extraordinary meeting of the branch soon to discuss next steps – we will notify members of the time and date soon.
Here’s a couple of articles members might be interested in:
On wellbeing working from home and why online working can be more tiring and stressful, see ‘The reason Zoom calls drain your energy‘ from BBC Worklife.
On casualisation and Covid-19 being used to target staff on casual and short-term contracts see ‘Covid-19 shows up UK universities’ shameful employment practices‘ by Stefan Collini for the Guardian.
At the recent KU UCU Branch meeting a #CoronaContract motion was passed to call on Kingston University support and protect the jobs of all staff on casual contracts and PhD students.
And the branch committee continues to urge all members to conduct a workstation assessment in view of health and safety considerations under working from home conditions.
KU UCU branch committee highly recommends that members who are working from home carry out a workstation self-assessment as a matter of urgency.
Your employer has a legal obligation to abide by Health & Safety guidelines while you are working from home. If you feel that you are at risk or have concerns about your working environment you should raise these with your line manager. Please feel free to also alert your Kingston UCU branch officers.
To help you conduct a self-assessment there are guidelines from the Health and Safety Executive. The university’s current guidance can be found Staffspace along with FAQs about setting up home workstations. There is also an online training module on setting up and assessing your workstation. Staff can request to join this module by emailing safety@kingston.ac.uk
On Tuesday 24th March UCU representatives, along with our partner unions, met formally with KU senior management at a Joint Negotiating and Consultative Committee (JNCC) meeting to discuss actions and reactions to the current national Covid-19 emergency.
In the interim between scheduling and the meeting taking place, the situation had moved rapidly nationally and some of the concerns had already been addressed either by KU themselves or by government instruction.
Some of the key areas of concern for our members were:
