Ivan Bonsell | University of Brighton UNISON Branch

Consultative Ballot over Compulsory Redundancies – Last chance to vote!

Our ballot closes at 5pm on Friday 16th October, so if you’ve not already voted, please do it now! All members working directly for the University (so excluding Students’ Union, L&Q or Kingdom Services) should vote. We want as large a turnout as possible, for two reasons. 1. It will show the University that our…

UNISON Statement on the latest situation, 12th October 2020

As students return and activity continues to develop on-site, we want to be clear about what we think about the current situation and what we’d like the University to do. Positive cases It’s clear that students are testing positive and the expectation is that the number of students with Covid (either with or without…

Securing Our Future, by making redundancies

As part of our campaign to save jobs, we’ve launched our consultative ballot today by emailing all our members. If you work directly for the University, please make sure you vote by Friday 16th October. On Friday, we recieved an email from the Registrar and Secretary, outlining the IT Review. “Following a wide range…

Information Services – Compulsory Redundancies?

As you may be aware, the University are consulting with staff involved in IT and Reprographics over the outcome of the Securing Our Future report, which pretty much recommends reducing the number of people involved, whilst recruiting some new managers – in a word, compulsory redundancies. We’ve written, alongside UCU, to the Vice Chancellor, demanding…

Return to Campus working?

There’s pages and pages we could write about this subject. This is a brief summary of our thinking at this point in time, Friday 11th September. What we’ve been doing Over the last few months, we’ve attended multiple safety meetings and discussions about what a safe return to campus teaching and research looks like. Our…

A-level results: A different level of chaos

The fiasco of A-level results this week has, in the words of the Vice Chancellor, introduced “a different level of chaos, which we need to work out.” On the one hand, the government U-turn to award students’ A-level results based on the assessments of their teachers, will, theoretically mean more students in the system to…

Come and join us on this socially distanced protest, in favour of NHS pay justice

National Survey of Higher Education Members

This is the latest survey of all UNISON’s members working in universities. it aims to capture information about how you’re feeling and what you want your trade union to prioritise nationally. Please take a few minutes to complete it. There’s the usual prize draw opportunity for those who do. Take the survey now

August 2020 pay offer – 0%!!

Trade unions in higher education have received the initial offer from UCEA (the employers’ organisation) for a pay rise due in August. It’s nothing. So apart from adjustments at the bottom of the pay scale to maintain paying at least the National Living Wage, an “increase” of nothing represents a further real terms pay cut…

On-line Unionlearn Courses and Webinars

Members may be interested in this: https://www.unionlearn.org.uk/event/2020/you-your-kids-and-online-safety If you’re interested, it’s worth looking at Unionlearn’s website, which has a load of courses and learing opportunities available to trade union members: Unionlearn is the learning and skills organisation of the Trades Union Congress (TUC). Unionlearn works to assist unions in the delivery of learning opportunities…