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News Archives

Disquiet in the ranks

Published: 17th May, 2018

This afternoon, Professor Paul Boyle emailed all University of Leicester employees with a ‘University financial planning update’. The content and language was all too familiar. The president and vice-chancellor informed us that ‘we continue to face a number of financial issues, both local and national’. He also wrote Whilst other universities have reduced their staff…

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Viscount Hanworth, Leicester professor emeritus, on the state of higher education

Published: 11th May, 2018

On May 9, the House of Lords debated the Higher Education and Research Act 2017. Viscount Hanworth, aka Stephen Pollock, is emeritus professor in the University of Leicester’s economics department (now subsumed into the School of Business) and remains a member of Leicester UCU. Below, we reproduce his contribution to the debate. My Lords, the…

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The green and the unseen

Published: 2nd May, 2018

The scandal about the Home Office’s mistreatment of the Windrush generation has dominated the news in the past week. Students at UK universities have also been victims of the ‘hostile environment’ as this story in the Financial Times makes clear, and British universities have themselves become ‘enforcers‘. The University of Leicester is complicit. At the…

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‘Narrow, unradical, wholly inadequate’: the Gender Pay Gap Report

Published: 28th March, 2018

Last week, University of Leicester employees were the lucky recipients of two reports. One contained the results of the 2017 staff survey – our response is here. The other was the Gender Pay Gap Report. Below, one ‘dejected but unsurprised’ colleague explains why the institution’s proposed strategies for change are ‘narrow, unradical, and wholly inadequate’….

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You broke it, Paul. You own it! The 2017 staff survey

Published: 25th March, 2018

At the end of last week, Paul Boyle wrote to all University of Leicester employees about the results of the 2017 staff survey – conducted in October and November. The timing of the release – Friday afternoon, when many employees’ heads were full of pension-dispute thoughts – led some to speculate that our president and…

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Working Conditions=Learning Conditions

Published: 21st March, 2018

Here are two lovely fliers distributed at a meeting of Leicester Students’ Union – where students took the decision to back UCU in any future strike action over the pensions dispute. PDFs of the fliers are here – lists and here – sausages & classroom. A more generic one – i.e. without specific references to…

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Strike Report – Day 13 (Singing in the rain)

Published: 15th March, 2018

Today was a day of high spirits. The excellent news from yesterday afternoon that strike pay is to be deducted at a rate of 2 days per month over the next 7 months resulted in a particularly buoyant mood on the picket lines. (More info on this deduction agreement is here.) As we came together…

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Strike-day pay deductions agreement

Published: 14th March, 2018

Our branch negotiating team met with members of ULT today in order to discuss operational matters related to the current industrial action. It was a cordial and productive meeting in which we were able to find many points of agreement. I am delighted to report the extremely welcome outcomes of that meeting. University of Leicester…

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Why are we still on strike?

Published: 13th March, 2018

Flier produced March 13 to explain UCU branches’ decisive rejection of ‘deal’ proposed by UCU and UUK negotiators on March 12. Available here as PDF and here as Word doc – feel free to adapt as you wish.

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Strike Report – Day 11 (Deal or No Deal?)

Published: 13th March, 2018

Was that the most intense day so far? It’s been an emotional 20 hours. Yesterday evening we learned that our UCU negotiators had struck a deal with their Universities UK counter-parts. UCU General Secretary Sally Hunt was selling it as a good deal – a done deal? But it took no time to work out…

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