The national HE team are taking the Shared Services and outsourcing trend very seriously. You can read thier advice on the national UNISON web site at the following address:
http://www.unison.org.uk/education/higher/pages_view.asp?did=11048
Unfortunately there has been little progress in national pay talks.
The Higher Education Service Group Executive will be meeting next week to discuss the situation and our strategy.
Further information can be found in the attached bulletin.
At the New JNCHES meeting on 29 March, UCEA made an offer to explore how a non-consolidated cash sum equivalent to 0.25% of pay bill could be applied.
The employers made no serious attempt to address the other key elements of the joint union claim; for example, nothing on:
Without producing any convincing evidence, the employers asserted that the effect of incremental increases on the pay bill should be taken into account during pay negotiations. This provoked a strong response from the trade unions. Unlike the private sector who pay the rate for the job from day one in the public sector staff start below the full rate and build up reflecting increasing knowledge and skills – arguably providing a short term subsidy for HE employers. The employers negotiated a pay deal in 2003 that clearly accepted increments as part of the structure so to complain now, when they have known and presumably budgeted for such increases, is a little disingenuous. They are looking for fig leaves and this will not wash.
The trade union side unanimously rejected the offer. The employers were asked to rethink their position and come to the next meeting with a credible offer.
Hi,
We don’t have a great deal to tell you, I’m afraid, about the current financial situation. The reason, though, is positive and is based around the fact that the cautious thumbs-up we had from our previous meetings with Management remains and it looks unlikely to change without further cuts to funding.
A number of you will be aware of ongoing restructuring – some of which is related to earlier financial commitments and some is unrelated to the financial planning. We are involved in discussions regard those areas of restructuring and supporting the membership through what must be a time of uncertainty. Meanwhile we continue to engage with Management at a strategic level and to apply political pressure at a national level to avert further cuts to HE spending.
As promised – the minutes from our 2010 AGM. If you can any comments/queries etc please do feed them back to one of us.
Today we had our 2010 AGM – thanks to all of those who attended and made it a useful event for us all 🙂
The topics discussed were quite diverse and in addition to the usual agenda items for AGM included:
We had a bit of a shuffle around with executive committee positions and have welcomed Pieter Smit aboard as our new Membership Secretary – thanks Pieter 🙂
More details will be forthcoming with the minutes… watch this space…
It’s in the newsletter but it’s worth saying again!
The YSJ Unison Annual General Meeting will be held on the 3rd of March at 10.30 – 11.30am in
DG 017. All staff who are Unison members are entitled to attend. If you have any difficulties
getting released from work for the hour please let your local Rep know who can remind your
manager of this entitlement! Come along to hear how your union Rep’s have been working to
ensure the staff voice has been heard during a very difficult year, and raise any issues you feel
need to be discussed. There will be branch updates, discussions and votes about who will be
representing you in the year to come.
If you are particularly interested in either equalities or staff learning issues at the University let
us know – we have two new Rep positions we are looking to fill – could one of them be yours?
DG 017 is on the ground floor of the new De Grey building. To find it you will simply need to
follow the signs to the Unison AGM or ask at reception.
The newsletter for February 2010 is here.. thanks to Anna for her dedication to the task 🙂 Click the link below to download it.
Hello and welcome to our new web site. We’re happy to see it go live and hope that we can use this new technology to keep you better informed with what’s happening with UNISON here at YSJ and with regional and national news.