There are only a few days left to have your say in the higher education ballots so please post your ballot paper by Monday 28 October at the very latest.

Voting now will improve the union’s bargaining position and empowers your negotiators. If we beat the 50% threshold for strike action we anticipate that the employers will seriously consider making us an offer before any action happens, because they will remember how effective last year’s strikes were. If we don’t, there is no realistic chance of us improving our lots in relation to pensions, pay, workload, casualisation, or equality. It really is that stark.

A strong turn-out in Cardiff specifically will also help the local branch in its on-going negotiations for improvements with Cardiff University. A weak one will have the opposite effect.

We as a union have democratically decided to encourage members to vote “Yes“ to strike action and ASOS in both ballots, but whatever you think about pay, pensions, job security or equality: please don’t leave it to others to speak for you. Please vote, and also remind your colleagues to vote by sharing this short video clip or by sharing this Facebook event

We *know* that this info has been shared a lot, but we still have to point people in the direction of info like this.

You can find the campaign leaflet for the “Four Fights” ballot on pay, the gender pay gap, workload and casualisation here. It goes into good detail about the issues we face and the demands we’re making.

You can find the campaigning leaflet in defence of our USS pensions here.

If you’d like to hear from our national negotiators first-hand what they’re bargaining for on our behalf, and what a mandate for strike action could get us, then  watch this video, recorded at a Cardiff UCU event a couple of weeks ago.

For those of you who want to prioritize: first up is Sam Marsh (one of our pensions negotiators), talking about USS (00:00-13:00mins); then comes Robyn Orfitelli (one of our negotiators on pay, casualization, equality and workload) at 14:00-32:30mins; followed by a Q&A with both (32:30-40:11mins)).

Robyn (@rorfitelli, r.orfitelli@sheffield.ac.uk) and Sam (@sam_marsh101, S.J.Marsh@shef.ac.uk) have both kindly offered to take any questions from Cardiff members, either by email or on Twitter.

A turnout under 50% of UCU members will invalidate the ballot, even if a majority of members vote in favour of action. This unusually restrictive anti-trade union law means it’s more important than ever to vote, even if you don’t support the action.

We strongly urge every member eligible to vote in the ballots to vote. Again, abstention is a direct attack on those who *do* want to have their say, so whatever you think about the issues, please vote.

The UCU nationally has strike fund to help those most in need of assistance (see the recent email from Jo Grady about this), and we do at local level too. At Cardiff, we’re better prepared than ever to support striking members with a healthy solidarity fund which we’re building all the time. During the last strike UCU took extra care to support precariously employed members such as those on low incomes, PhD students, and Postdocs and we aim to do so again. We realise that hourly paid workers may have difficulty evidencing loss of pay and will take that into account.

While we hope that as many union members as possible do take part in industrial action it is also worth noting that voting “yes” now does not oblige you to strike later. If you are on the fence about this ballots please consider voting “yes” now anyway. Signalling that a high percentage of union members is willing to strike strengthens our negotiators’ position and will hopefully help us to resolve the dispute without industrial action becoming necessary.

We are currently planning a benefit gig to fund-raise for our local strike fund to be held in early December 2019. We’ve got a number of bands already willing to play for us, and when we’ve got a date and venue we’ll share the info!