Author Archives: cardiff

Our Alternative Open Day and Picket Cricket

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On Friday, striking UCU members presented our ‘Alternative Open Day’ to prospective students visiting Cardiff University.

We handed out nearly six thousand leaflets and chatted to many students and parents as they passed.

Here’s a reminder of why we are striking for fair pay in HE:

But while the issues are serious, we found a little time for a game of Picket Cricket:

Slides From Liz Morrish’s Talk

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Liz Morrish addressed an open meeting following the Cardiff UCU AGM on 1 June 2016, giving a talk entitled “The Metric Tide Which Sinks All Boats: The Discourse of Performance Management”. She has kindly given her permission for us to post the slides from her talk:

[iframe src=”https://onedrive.live.com/embed?cid=4332AAA4F6F970D4&resid=4332AAA4F6F970D4%21107&authkey=AJPL-HNAPcTpBbA&em=2″ width=”100%” frameborder=”0″ scrolling=”no”]

You can also see the tweets from the event Storified below:

[iframe src=”//storify.com/CardiffUCU/the-metric-tide-which-sinks-all-boats-the-discours/embed?header=false&border=false” width=”100%” height=”750″ frameborder=”no” allowtransparency=”true”]

Same time tomorrow! #FairPayinHE

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Thank you to everyone who joined us or supported us on the picket lines today!

It’s the same time tomorrow: meet at 8.30 on theĀ picket outside the Main Building car park, Park Place, Cathays Park campus. There will again be a rally and speakers at 10.30am. See you then!
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Pay Dispute – Cardiff UCU Supporting National Two Day Strike on 25 & 26 May

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Cardiff UCU will be supporting UCUā€™s national two day strike on Wednesday 25 and Thursday 26 May and commence working to contract from 25 May. Members will:

  • picket outside the Main Building car park, Park Place, Cathays Park campus, from 8.30am on both days. There will be a rally and speakers at 10.30am
  • commence working to contract from Wednesday 25 May until further notice

WeĀ are taking industrial action because:

  • Pay in higher education has fallen in value against inflation by 14.5% since 2009
  • At the same time the gender pay gap remains very high in many institutions
  • Ā The growth in casual contracts undermines the job security of all staff
  • Ā In response to these issues, the employers have made an offer to increase salaries for 2016/17 by just 1.1%
  • In a ballot which closed on 4 May 2016, 65% of members voted to support strike action and 77% voted for ‘action short of a strike’ should an acceptable offer not be made.

PDR Advice for UCU Members

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15 April 2016

REVIEWEES

  • The main aim of PDR is to identify and facilitate professional development opportunities for reviewees (including training for advancement, as well as to enhance performance in their current post).
  • If your line manager requests that you attend a review meeting, this is normally a reasonable request that you cannot refuse.
  • If you have concerns about the capacity of your line manager to review your performance, then you should raise that directly with your Head of School/Directorate at least 7 days before the meeting to ensure there is time to address this matter.
  • If you had substantial periods of absence (illness, parental leave, etc.), or parttime work, or other factors affect the quantity or quality of your work, spell these circumstances out on the form, and refer to them in any text boxes where they seem relevant.
  • Agreed objectives should ideally be under your control (action-oriented and attainable), not fundamentally dependent on external factors beyond your control. For academics, for example, submitting a paper or grant proposal might be an attainable objective; in contrast, publishing a paper or winning a grant are hostage to external actors.
  • It is your choice whether the categorical overall assessment is recorded within the original categorical assessment fields, or is embedded as text within the comment section. If your reviewer asks you to do their job for them, you do not have to tell your reviewer what their overall assessment should be.
  • If you are asked to sign anything, do not sign unless you are happy with the content of the completed form and that it reflects your input into the process.
  • You should record concerns you have about the overall assessment or about the PDR process on the form itself, and keep notes to feed back to the University later.

REVIEWERS

  • The main aim of PDR is to identify and facilitate professional development opportunities for reviewees (including training for advancement, as well as to enhance performance in their current post).
  • Reviewers are expected to have the necessary knowledge and skills. Reviewers without relevant recent experience or training should complete training before acting as a Reviewer. Information regarding training can be found on the intranet (https://intranet.cardiff.ac.uk/staff/your-employment/your-performance/performance-development-review/help-for-reviewers ) or through the Staff Development Programme.
  • You should keep notes about concerns you have about the PDR process to feed back to the University later.

HE Funding Cuts- We did our bit

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Like many others, we wrote to the Welsh Governmentā€™s Minister for Education and Skills setting out the case against the proposed cuts and we are pleased that the level of cuts has been reduced in the WG budget. This episode has shown that when people and organisations unite, we can influence events. Please tell your colleagues who you believe may be eligible to join UCU but have not yet done so!

 

Cardiff UCU Survey of Professional Fees & Conference Funding

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OurĀ members, and their colleagues who are members of staff at Cardiff University but are not yet members of Cardiff UCU, are urged toĀ participate inĀ this survey.

Some members have drawn our attention to the apparent withdrawal of University funding forĀ Ā Ā  professional fees and conference expenses. The indications are that this is affecting manyĀ staffĀ across the University. We have therefore decided to survey members and non-members on these issues.

The survey will only take a few minutes to complete and will helpĀ us to build a picture of the funding to support conferences and professional fees that are provided across the different schools at Cardiff University.

Please:

–Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā  Ā go to https://cardiffucu.onlinesurveys.ac.uk/conference-funding Ā to complete the survey

–Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā  members: pass this link to colleagues who you believe are eligible to join UCU but may not be UCU members andĀ encourage them to complete the survey.