Our negotiators met with management at the Joint Consultative and Negotiating Forum (JCNF) on 18th November to seek a commitment from the University that no member of staff should be forced to work on campus during the pandemic, following the mandate given by Cardiff UCU members at the General Meeting on 6th September.

The University refused to accept that staff are being coerced into working on campus or to make a public commitment to prevent such cases. As a result, on Tuesday 1st December we wrote to the VC to invoke the disputes resolution procedure in the following terms:

“Cardiff University has failed to give a clear and public commitment not to compel any member of staff or worker to attend face-to-face work on campus while the COVID-19 pandemic continues to pose a significant public health risk.”

We hope, as ever, that this dispute can be resolved through negotiation and that the branch does not need to resort to industrial action, but in the face of the University’s intransigence on this so far, it is likely that we will soon be asking for your views on a ballot for industrial action.