1. Dispute Update
As you can probably guess from the text above, our negotiators reported a ‘failure to agree’ at the last Joint Negotiating Committee (JNC) meeting with the University Executive Board (UEB) on 18th February. The University management claims that under no circumstances could they make such a statement that says no member of staff should be compelled into face-to-face work on campus since making such a statement would imply that this is currently happening and they believe appropriate procedures are already in place.
We have now referred the dispute to ACAS (The Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service https://www.acas.org.uk/) in an attempt to resolve it through facilitated discussions with management . In the meantime, we ask again all our members to ensure their postal addresses are up to date on their UCU account (here) so that you don’t miss the ballot for industrial action if we cannot resolve the dispute through ACAS.
Please continue to engage with us so that we are aware of a range of views across the branch regarding our dispute. You can get in touch with the office (ucu@cardiff.ac.uk) or share your views or ideas via this link.
2. Meeting for Staff with Caring Responsibilities
Several members have contacted us to raise issues related to their caring responsibilities, especially relating to home-schooling children while working.
We remind you that you can always request a caseworker to support you if you would like to raise concerns with your manager.
We have contacted management to address this collectively, and we will be calling a meeting where members facing similar issues can come together to share experiences, let us know of their concerns and discuss what further action by the branch would be the most useful to them.
Please fill in a poll to indicate your availability for the meeting. Please tick all dates and times you can attend but feel no obligation to join if, when the time comes, you just don’t feel like attending yet another meeting. Our Membership/Recruitment Secretary, Luzia Dominguez, is coordinating this work; if you cannot attend the meeting or if you prefer, you can contact her directly on (dominguezl@cardiff.ac.uk) or our office (ucu@cardiff.ac.uk)