UCU St Andrews Action Plan!

We have drawn up a plan of action for the forthcoming year and the following issues will be our top priorities:

a)      Working groups: We have set up a number of working groups to address the main issues you have identified as being most important to you.  Each working group will take on responsibility for investigating what the problems are, if there are any “hotspots” within the university, what the union (and the university) can do to address the problems and generally try to improve matters for our members.  The groups will each comprise around 4 members and will be led by the relevant committee officer.  The groups will organise their own meeting schedules and the group leader will report back to committee on a regular basis.

The three initial groups will be focusing on (a) Workload/Stress/Bullying, (b) Communication & Recruitment, and (c) REF. If you would like to suggest topics for additional working groups (Environment? Fixed Term Contract issues?) we would love to hear from you.  We really need help from members on this one so anyone who would like to volunteer some time to help with the working groups should contact Susan for more information (sm247@st-andrews.ac.uk)

b)      Recruitment of new members is also going to be a big priority and we will be attending induction meetings for new staff, sending out information to all new staff members and looking at more ways to try and encourage colleagues to join UCU.  We have already been in touch with other branches and with UCU HQ to get some ideas from them about what we can do to run a successful recruitment campaign. There will be a “Sharing Best Practice” meeting for Scottish branches next month and we’ll be sending some reps along to that to get some more ideas.  If you’d like to go to that, or have any thoughts on how to recruit more members, let us know. More to follow in due course!

c)       Communication with members and not-yet-members will also be high on the list of priorities.  We plan to implement improvements to the website, to start producing regular newsletters, and to send out weekly emails to members with local news.  We are also developing local publicity posters and will be asking for volunteers to “model” for the posters…  If you have any suggestions or have relevant skills to help (and a little time to spare!) we’d love to hear from you.

d)      Local meetings: we will be holding General Meetings and Open Meetings throughout the academic year and will try to find venues and times that suit as many of you as possible.  Let us know whether you’d prefer early morning, lunchtime or evening meetings.  We will advertise the meetings as far in advance as possible, and will get emails and posters out ahead of time to ensure you all know about them in plenty of time.

With the big issues of Pay and Pensions becoming ever more critical, we have invited Alan Carr, UCU’s Treasurer, to come to St Andrews to speak to members about the USS pensions negotiations (5 September), and Paul Bridge (UCU HE negotiator) will come up to speak to members about the annual pay negotiations (26 September).  Details to follow in a separate email.

We are also happy to organise departmental meetings on request – tell us the issues that matter most in your department and we’ll come along to speak to you and your colleagues on ways the union might be able to help.

e)      You want more local representatives:  Our local committee of volunteers already work very hard representing you at university meetings, helping members with workplace problems, attending national meetings etc.  We would love to be able to help more of our members – and we need YOU to help us help you! Volunteer as a departmental rep or learning rep, train as a case worker, join the committee (see chart below for vacancies), help stick up posters, hold departmental meetings, contribute to the newsletter, recruit a friend or two…  Any help you can give, however little it might seem, will be greatly appreciated and it all counts! There are regular training events for reps and the local/regional officers are here to support and advise you every step of the way.

More details on what local reps can do can be found here – http://www.ucu.org.uk/index.cfm?articleid=4896  or contact Susan for more information (sm247@st-andrews.ac.uk) There will be training events in Aberdeen (Sept and Nov) and in Edinburgh (Jan, Feb, Apr).  Health & Safety training will be held in Stirling in September.  Training events are free to UCU members and travel expenses will also be met. See more about training here – http://www.ucu.org.uk/media/pdf/8/e/Activist_Education_Guide_at_1May12.pdf