Ivan Bonsell | University of Brighton UNISON Branch

Nursery Ballot is now closed

Thanks to everyone who voted in our postal ballot over One World Nursery. We are still yet to find anyone who thinks closing the Nursery makes sense and we are determined to find a way to keep it open, if the University is willing to discuss that, rather than maintain the fiction that £83,000 or…

Nursery Ballot – just a few days to go

Our postal ballot over the plans to close One World Nursery closes at 10am on Thursday 17th June, so any remaining ballot papers would need to be posted by Tuesday, or very early on Wednesday morning, depending on the post box. So, if you haven’t yet voted, please do it as soon as you can…

Nursery Postal Ballot is now live!

Our ballot over the closure of One World Nursery is happening now. If you work directly for the University, please look out for your ballot paper and return it as soon as possible. There’s more information in our June newsletter and we’ll be contacting members to check you have voted. Please let us know when…

Emergency General Meeting 27th May 2021

Thanks to everyone who made it to our Emergency General Meeting yesterday. It was great to see so many people attend at such short notice and we think it shows the strength of feeling of our branch members in relation our dispute over One World Nursery. After three dispute meetings with the University’s management, we…

One World Nursery consultation

Thanks to everyone who responded to our consultation over industrial action to support the nursery workers at One World. Sorry for the multiple emails to ask you all to vote, but it was and still is important that we have an accurate assessment of the branch’s feeling over this issue. On a 54.6% turnout, 86.7%…

Consultative Vote – please make sure you vote!

Stop the Closure of One World Nursery! All our University-employed members – please vote in our consultative ballot. it’s important to get a decent turnout to accurately gauge how our members feel about the impending closure and how willing members are to fight it. Eleven jobs and a valuable service are resting on this….

Community engagement?

We’re all very proud of the University’s community engagement. Unfortunately, it seems like this commitment to being deeply rooted in the community, now doesn’t extend as far as finding £83,000 a year to support the continuation of One World Nursery. How closing down the last remaining nursery, offering childcare and early-years education helps “widening access…

Save One World Nursery! Please help us campaign to keep it open!

The University Executive Board have decided to close the last remaining nursery for good at the end of July. This will mean the destruction of a valuable and well-respected university service, which has been providing education for early-years children for decades, as well as making people redundant. Our branch, alongside all eleven nursery workers, are…

UNISON Supports Kill the Bill protests

Come and join us this Saturday for the latest protest against the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts bill, which is a massive attack on our right to protest. We’ll be there with the banner, and please make sure you’re careful about wearing a face-covering and keeping an appropriate distance.

Overtime Payments

One issue which came up in our members’ meeting last week was the relationship between overtime and time off in lieu. Firstly, there is no contractual right to overtime, but if a member of staff is offered additional work then the offer should be made to everyone within the appropriate group (i.e. offered on a…