Dear all

Here we are again, at the end of another Autumn term and heading into the Christmas holidays. It seems as though this term has flashed by but that could be because we have all been so busy with ballots and industrial action in both FE and HE and further ballots to come in the New Year. On top of that we have also had some major negotiations going on with pay claims in FE and various forms of contractual negotiations in HE, not least finally reaching agreement pending a membership ballot, after four years of negotiations on a contract for the Associate Lecturer staff at the OU which will take over 4,000 staff off precarious contracts and move them on to fractional open ended contracts.

There have been a couple of changes in the regional office too as our caseworker Alex has moved into the London region on a temporary basis as an RSO. We have had excellent cover provided to us by Declan Hickey who is the caseworker for the South East region and we will hopefully be appointing a temporary full time caseworker in the New Year. As we only have Declan part time I am afraid he is even more jealously guarded than Alex was and you will not be access him directly without going through your link official first.

The region has been focusing on delivering local training this term and that will continue into the next year so if your branch is interested in training on anything from bargaining to casework then do get in touch. You should however reserve the date of 23 January for our regular senior reps briefing where we ask that two reps from each branch attend for updates on the regional and national industrial scene, and we will have both Andrew Harden (Head of FE) and Paul Bridge (Head of HE) in attendance to give us the most up to date information in their sectors. Please let us know as soon as possible who will be attending so that we can sort out the practicalities of catering etc.

The UCU offices will be closed from the 21 December until 3 January. In the event that members need assistance then you can in the first instance direct them towards the Education Support Partnership Website here<https://www.educationsupportpartnership.org.uk/>. The Regional Office staff will not be checking their emails or their phones over the Christmas shut down and hopefully you will not need to contact us anyway.

I hope that you all have a fantastic break and get some rest. Happy Christmas from the regional team!

Dear colleague

Once again we have reached the summer after a very long year. The staff in the regional office are all hoping that you are going to have a proper break at some point and get some rest. As usual the staff in the office will also be taking leave so please be kind if you are referring anything through to us and have a bit of patience if it takes a while to respond.

Over the summer you might find it helpful to copy in the regional office team if you are seeking help on the usual address of eastern@ucu.org.uk We will be providing handovers for cover when we are away but if things could be kept until your link officer returns then we would be very grateful.

Please can you also let the regional office know who will be covering your branch over the summer so that we know who to contact if necessary.

Training

The regional office makes it a priority to provide training support local branches where there are perceived gaps in the national training programme. We respond the branch and regional committee requests when devising our training programme and have been willing to run training with less than 10 participants if we believe it will benefit the branches in the region.

However we have recently run a number of training events where branch activists have signed up but have then cancelled or not turned up to the training. This puts our training programme at risk and means colleagues who do turn up are not getting the full experience they deserve.
Branches are therefore asked to ensure that when members sign up to training events they are fully committed to attending.

We understand emergencies do occur but unless colleagues are willing to commit to the training we will need to reconsider how we provide these resources to branches in the region.

We will be running the Caseworkers courses this autumn as follows:
Caseworkers 1 – introduction to casework 11 September
Caseworkers 2 – advanced casework 23 October

We will also be running some targeted Bargaining Training in branches as well as a possible rerun of the supporting members with hidden disabilities course.

We will also be writing to branches to ask what we could be doing differently to make it possible for reps to develop more skills, so if you receive an email from us then do please reply with as much detail as possible so that we can ensure that our training meets your needs.

Senior Reps briefing 19 September

Please put this date in your diary now. We would like a maximum of two reps per branch. It looks as though next term is going to be a busy one with USS, pay in both FE and HE sectors to contend with as well as the outcome of TEF and plans for REF and the fallout from College mergers post Area Reviews. Plus we want to talk about the role of Union Learning Reps and how they can support the industrial work of the branch. We really need to update you before everything gets hectic so please make sure that you prioritise this.

National Recruitment Weeks – 6 November and 14 May – Do One Thing

These weeks are your platform to get people to join UCU. More and more branches are running recruitment events during National Recruitment Weeks – and let’s face it, there’s no better time to be in UCU. For the week of 6 Nov, we will be encouraging every branch in the region to Do One Thing to recruit new members.

This could include:

• Holding an open recruitment meeting on a local theme with a national speaker *
• Targeting a specific group of the workforce – colleagues on precarious contracts or addressing the gender pay gap in your institution
• Running a lunchtime stall and catching passers-by
• Running a reps’ door knocking session and approach non-members throughout the workplace
• Organising open surgeries to provide initial advice on problems at work

*Running an open meeting is good for building UCU’s profile. If you would like a national speaker for your branch, please get in touch by Friday 15th September.

There are a huge number of possibilities, you are bound to have good ideas about what works locally. Doing just one thing on recruitment will make a difference in your branch.

The regional office can provide local materials, planning and hands on support for your recruitment activity and guidance on what works. Get in touch with us early (via your link official or eastern@ucu.org.uk) and get your plans to Do One Thing in place after the summer break. We will be working with the national office to offer mailshots to non-members and to get general recruitment materials into your branch as you need them.

Regional Social Media

Chris Aitken has been working extremely hard to build up our profile on social media as well as on our blog site. You can find our blog at http://ehc.web.ucu.org.uk/ and there you will also find a reps only section that contains all of the caseworkers briefings and other materials that we consider sensitive and not for the general public. That section is password protected. Please contact the office if you need the password. We also have a Twitter account where we post updates on the work of the region and anything else we think might be of interest. You can find that at https://twitter.com/UCUEHCRegion Please follow us!

That is it for now. Once dates have been set by the national union for any other special days of interest or action then we will let you have those as quickly as possible so that you can plan your activities.

In the meantime, I hope that you all have a lovely summer and as ever huge thanks from the regional office for all of the hard work that you have done this year. It really is much appreciated.

Best wishes

Lydia Richards

Dear Colleague

Firstly I hope that you are all surviving the heat and taking appropriate measures to keep cool – that probably means not meeting with management though as that is bound to get people heated regardless of the weather!

Once again I would like to thank all of you for the hard work that you have put in this year, representing your members, organising disputes, running picket lines in support of national action. It is all very much appreciated by all of us. I know that people don’t often say thank you, but THANK YOU from the regional office.

This email aims to give you a taste of some of the work of the regional office and our plans for next year, as well as important dates for your diaries and information regarding cover over the summer.

Brexit

We have had a number of queries coming in to the Regional Office relating to the implications of Brexit. Obviously it is too early to say and so impossible to provide members with concrete assurances, however as you will have seen, UCU is pursuing this matter at every level with government to work to ensure our members are secure. One of the key concerns for the regional office has been the rise of the number of hate crimes as a result of the vote and we are committed to opposing these and supporting our members where necessary.

The Regional Office is promoting active engagement on these issues as we believe that the only way to stop intolerance is to name it publicly and to state absolute opposition to it. Our members might be facing the consequences of this not only in the workplace but also in their home lives and we are asking branches to seek assurances from their employers that racist abuse will not be tolerated and that staff will be given appropriate support if they face it.

Many employers have issued statements regarding Brexit and we would ask you to urge your employers to make public statements opposing xenophobia and hate crimes. One example of this has come through from the University of Cambridge where the Vice Chancellor has written to staff saying the following:

” I am conscious, too, that times like these can reveal divisions within communities. These divisions, as we have heard from various anecdotal and media reports, can lead to a rise in abusive and xenophobic behaviour.

While there are no indications that these kinds of incidents are happening within the University, it would be wrong to assume that our staff and students are immune from them. I have personally had conversations with a number of senior figures, including the Bishop of Ely, to make clear my deepest concerns on this subject. I endorse fully both the Bishop’s and the Archbishop of Canterbury’s condemnation of intolerance in the House of Lords.

As I said this week at the Vice-Chancellor’s Annual Equality and Diversity Review, Cambridge has always thrived by seeking to maintain an open, diverse and multi-national community that is inclusive of all aspects of gender, race, disability, sexual orientation and religion. We need these values now more than ever, and I am sure that you share my commitment to ensuring that Cambridge remains an exciting and welcoming destination for all.”

Ideally we would like to see all employers issuing similar (or even stronger) statements to their staff and students so if you haven’t seen anything similar from your employer could you please raise it. It would be helpful to find out what your employer is doing about preparing for a break away from the EU. In Essex University for example they have set up a Brexit Committee and UCU has been invited to have a seat on the committee. This is a very positive and welcome move and is exactly what branches should be seeking from their employers.

Senior Reps briefings and training

The Region will be issuing you with notifications of training events as they come up. We do currently have some dates that you should put in your diaries:

Senior Reps briefings: 1 November and 29 March

Retired members briefing: 29 November

Casework briefing: 24 January

There will be more dates coming soon and of course if you can arrange to have at least six members in attendance then we are happy to come out to your branches and run local training for you on a wide variety of subjects.

Strategy Planning

In the past branches have found it extremely useful to have a strategy session for the following year to identify key priorities, and create organising plans as well as looking for new reps and members to get involved. Recently there hasn’t seem to be much time for branches to carry out this sort of activity but we know from experience that spending some time identifying key objectives can save a whole lot of time later and means that you are more prepared to face whatever might be thrown at you over the following year. The regional office can run strategy planning sessions in your branch that can last anything from a couple of hours to a whole day.

Please contact the regional office on eastern@ucu.org.uk to arrange a date if you would like us to facilitate a session for you in your branch. These strategy sessions are really effective regardless of the size of your branch and the level of activity that already takes place, so even if your branch has only a couple of reps you will find it helpful to plan out how to build your union organisation to get more people involved.

Racism and Student Complaints

The regional office is becoming more and more aware that there appears to be a link between staff facing action due to student complaints and either overt or more subtle forms of racism. To counter this we have developed a series of FOI questions that we can raise with your employer. The regional office would submit the questions and then share the results with you and then work out the steps that we need to take in light of the information. If you would be interested in taking this approach with your employer then please get in touch with the regional office.

The Regional Office takes up social media!

You can now follow the activities of the Regional Office on Twitter using @UCUEHCRegion and we also have a blog that you can follow at http://ehc.web.ucu.org.uk/. If there is anything that you want us to tweet or if you have events that you would like to publicise, or victories that you have achieved, or simply news to share with other branches then let us know. If this all seems a bit daunting then don’t worry, we are looking at running social media training in the region at some point during the year.

Summer Holidays

Hopefully you are all finding time this summer to have a proper break. The regional office staff are very much looking forward to their own summer holidays and we will be reduced in numbers over the next month or so. We will be providing cover as colleagues go on holiday but please bear with us if we can’t respond as quickly as you would like. You might find it easier to use the generic regional office email address until September rather than contacting your lead official as then it will be picked up by someone in the regional office.

Holidays of staff are as follows:

Ben    25 July – 12 August

Lydia  12 August – 2 September

Jane   29 July – 12 August and 31 August – 2 September

Alex   25 July – 29 July and 16 – 19 August and 22-26 August

Chris is saving her holiday until the Autumn so will be around for most of the summer but be gentle with her as she is having to sort everything out while everyone else is away!

I am hoping that everyone will come back from their holidays refreshed and raring to go as we have a lot coming our way in the next academic year, including the HE pay dispute, nearly all of our FE colleges being hit with the Area Reviews in November and changes to the prison education commissioning system coming up. And that’s just what we know about!

I have my fingers crossed that everything stays calm over the summer but we all know from bitter experience that these months are when employers decide that it is nice to reorganise things and bring in new policies.  If you are going on holiday then do not under any circumstances be tempted to check your email. Everything will wait for you when you come back and holidays should be proper breaks away from it all.