Strike Success!

Good news ! (?)

The strike last Thursday was a great success, and Steve West has finally acknowledged that his negotiation strategy (and his team in charge of it) were a complete disaster. He has more or less admitted that he has misinformed the public with his update before the strike (more on that soon), and has finally agreed to get personally involved in negotiations, which will now be taken to ACAS. As a consequence, UCU at UWE has suspended strike action following an Extraordinary General Meeting yesterday, and will now take its list of demands to ACAS.

There has been good media coverage of the strike on Thursday, the best of which is this video:

Teachers and Learners in Bristol (Michael Chanan) from New Statesman on Vimeo.

More soon!

CC

Better Strike Together

There will shortly be a post here on the reasons for the strike, the wider context for it, and a plea to students to support our strike. Meanwhile, some of you students have already produced a newsletter that explains the strike - thanks! You can download the first newsletter (more promised!) here: http://tiny.cc/BST1.

This is how the newsletter explains why students should support the strike:

Most staff oppose the restructure. Not only does it threaten their livelihoods and their careers, but it is also bad for students. Indeed, they know that, soon, our tuition fees will triple while the quality of all services at UWE has already decreased. This is particularly obvious when it comes to teaching. First, the morale of most employees has collapsed (because of the fear to lose their job, rising tensions between colleagues competing for fewer jobs, management’s disgraceful and disheartening tactics), affecting their performance in the classroom. Second, 80 out UWE’s 300 most senior jobs have already been deleted through voluntary redundancies. Even though degrees are cut (e.g. languages, environmental health), options disappear, class sizes increase and contact time decreases, employees’ workload is increasing.

Even though students are given little information by management or their student union to understand what is going on, many start to get a sense of what the restructure means for them. For example, John, a third year student of Creative Arts, Humanities and Education
says: “Its shit. I'm very disappointed... the best lecturer is leaving. And its not only a disappointment for me but also for my lecturer who just wants to do good for the students and to tell us about the world. He's always been supportive, approachable. He's always been able to say complex things in such simple ways, which has really helped students who need more guidance. I'm devastated that he's going”. ‘Our’ student union is not doing anything to defend the quality of education at UWE. In fact, Colin Offler imposes his personal opinion (he believes that we should not act in solidarity with staff, and he opposes the strike), in violation of his mandate to represent the diversity of students’ perspectives.

Read more at the link above and here soon! And please support our strike!

Strike Action!

The ballot of UCU members at UWE was a great success, with around 90% of votes for strike action. See the UCU press release below. See you on the picket line on 10th of February to start off!

What is remarkable about this is that in the most recent VC Update by Steve West (here), Steve West completely ignores the fact that there are any issues at all. The year 2010 was one of the most destructive for labour relations at UWE, and there has been a massive breach and consequent loss of trust between management and staff, yet Steve is so closed off from reality in his cocoon of cronies that he doesn't even notice that everyone is fed up!

His update simply reinfoces the point that it is time to strike to force him to notice how destructive the restructuring is and how little agreement there is among staff about where he and his executive are taking the university. Steve has despite several requests by the union categorically refused to be involved in disupte meetings, and so has done little to help resolve the dispute. Will you listen to us now Steve?

_________________________________

UNIVERSITY AND COLLEGE UNION (UCU)

PRESS RELEASE

date: Thursday 3 February 2011

for immediate release

Staff to strike at University of West England

• University to face local strike action for the first time in its history over restructure plans

Members of the University and College Union (UCU) at the University of West England (UWE) today (Thursday) announced that they will be taking strike action on Thursday 10 February in a row over controversial restructure plans.

The union has accused UWE of trying to rush through proposals which it believes could lead to inferior jobs descriptions and a dubious selection process. Under the plans all university readers, professors and principal lecturers are being made to reapply for their jobs as the university looks to cut back on senior posts by 25%. The measures will also affect lecturers and hourly-paid staff who will be subject to a review over the next few weeks.

UCU said that although it wasn’t against a restructure in principle, management had refused to allow enough time for the union to see if the process was fair and had prevented a deal from being reached.

The news follows the result of a month long ballot. Two-thirds of staff (66%) who voted supported strike action and over four-fifths (89%) agreed to action short of a strike. The union said that although its members at UWE had given a clear mandate for local strike action for the first time in the institution’s history, it still hoped the dispute could be resolved without any disruption.

UCU regional official, Nova Gresham, said: "Management is looking to rush proposals that will affect the jobs of hundreds of staff here at UWE. Had they been prepared to pause their plans and allow time for both sides to sit down together and make sure the process was fair and transparent a deal may well have been reached by now.

“There is still time for a negotiated settlement to be reached, but management should be warned that staff trust is at an all-time low and they are very angry at the way things have been handled. Unless the university gets its act together the branch will take local strike action for the first time in its history."