Live negotiations update

Read below for updates on our various negotiations and changes to University policy:

• hybrid working
• freedom of speech
• timetabling
• Support for disabled staff (or not)
• car parking – punish the poor
• Staff House – please, sir, can we have some food?
• MEQs – are you being discriminated?

Hybrid working

Following VC Tickell’s announcement in December 2023 that we would all need to be on campus a minimum 3 days per week, we have now seen some degree of climbdown. The policy document is still missing from the intranet page, but the current page does say that any flexible working arrangements already agreed and in place will be unaffected by any changes to the Hybrid Working Framework. Negotiations remain ongoing and the BUCU position is here.

Freedom of Speech on campus

We remain deeply concerned about the new infringements of Freedom of Speech on campus, including in the new Code of Practice. Our concerns – which we detail here – are over the restrictive way that requests for events and questions of teaching practices will now be evaluated, ultimately providing managers with the option to restrict events and teaching in a way that poses a clear threat to academic freedom and freedom of speech. The claim of the University management is that the University is restricted by the new Freedom of Speech (HE) Act – but in our view this new Code of Practice goes further than the legislation requires. We have presented our concerns to the University management.

Timetabling

There are yet more changes to timetabling, including now (for the first time – a few weeks after we mentioned its absence) an actual timetabling policy. This should be circulated to staff shortly. We have raised the point that we need to be consulted over what the policy contains. The main problem remains, however: a rigid, top-down approach by the University senior management – issuing “teaching blocks” and dictating student numbers, without proper consultation of actual needs within departments and schools – all of which creates a lack of flexibility in the timetabling process.  Any staff with caring duties, disabled staff requiring reasonable adjustments, and those with religious needs, should all be able to request accommodating teaching times. Contact us if you have any issues with this.

Support for Disabled Staff? – thanks, but no thanks!

We continue to request the University appoint a new Disabled Employees Advisor – a post that has been left vacant for now over three years – leaving disabled staff without the necessary support. The University have instead repeatedly pointed to the EAP service. Now, to add insult to injury, the University management have teamed up with the notorious Maximus, which it is claimed will provide “personalised support to help people who are in work and struggling with their mental health”. See the BUCU verdict on this new collaboration with Maximus – here!

Car parking

We continue to object to the new car parking fee regime. Despite Provost Stephen Jarvis’s attempt to declare this a ‘done deal’ – and despite the fact that we were ‘consulted’ on the price hike just days before it was announced – we continue to highlight the seven changes that need making in order to avoid it being a punitive attack on the poorest staff at the University. We have now secured another meeting with Simon Bray – who will no doubt be eager to hear (and act upon) our suggestions about how to avoid punishing the poorest members of staff at the University.

Staff House: No food on campus!

On 17th April, internal communications announced that the Noble Room (the staff canteen on the second floor of Staff House) was introducing a “fresh menu for summer” created “following feedback from over 800 customers”. However, this new menu includes removing the canteen’s salad bar and carvery, and replacing these with smaller-portion meals which are in some cases more expensive. 

More significantly, UCU and Unison members were shocked to learn that these changes are part of a transition that will see the Noble Room permanently close at the end of June in order to become teaching space.

We have also learned that the Noble Room will be replaced by this “fresh” menu being served in the Bratby Bar; a much smaller venue which is a far less inclusive space as pubs are inaccessible for many religious communities. Bratby is also much noisier as a rule, making it less accessible to many neurodivergent staff. 

These changes – which had not been announced publicly or discussed at all with the staff unions – puts into question the honesty of the 17th April briefing. 

As a result, UCU members have launched a grassroots campaign.

UCU and Unison have written to senior management to query this matter. We demand these changes are immediately put on hold so that we can work together to develop Staff House as our space, with proper food provision for the University’s staff members.

MEQs

As you will know, this year the University management introduced a new module evaluation questionnaire system (MEQs). The MEQs were introduced in a haphazard way – with no prior information to staff and a bodged use of Canvas. This was then followed by some Heads of School apparently not reading the memo (or maybe they read it, but then the instructions got changed, prompting a U-turn, and history subsequently got re-written). This saw Heads of School summoning (and then un-summoning) supposedly MEQ poor performers for a dress-down. The signs are that the University management have learned from those mistakes (LOL) and next year’s attempt will be more smooth – we will as usual be pushing for proper consultation before any changes are made. If any staff experience issues with MEQs – which we all know are explicitly discriminatory to everyone except the white men – please contact us and we can offer support against any unreasonable management tactics.