Independent Workers Union of Great Britain – Universities of London Branch

We’ve just written to HR with a series of questions on issues potentially affecting staff arising from the vote to leave the EU.

The full email is below – if you have any questions or worries please contact Catherine (catherine.morrissey@sas.ac.uk).

Dear Kim,

The recent referendum result has provoked a great deal of concern among staff, especially those who are EU citizens.

We have compiled an initial list of questions for the University (see below). If you could answer these where possible, or let us know who to address them to, that would be much appreciated.

1. Will UoL HR have the appropriate resource (staffing and financial) in place to deal with all the extra work in checking statuses, dealing with queries, and applying for work permits if and when necessary? Will the UoL be prepared to apply for work permits if it becomes necessary for professional services staff?
2. Given the number of staff affected, will the UoL be able to support staff applying for residency or citizenship? That support could be financial or in terms of negotiating generous timescales so that no individual currently employed is disadvantaged. NB: applying for citizenship is very expensive.
3. How will the change in residence status affect the employment status of permanent staff? I.e. Would they lose the permanent employment status they started with if they don’t have the correct residence documents?
4. Will European Union citizens need to provide “leave to remain” evidence to continue working at the UoL, over and above their EU passport? If so, what evidence precisely would be required?
5. How will the UoL treat EU staff who have been in the UK for less than 5 years and do not yet qualify for residency?
6. Will the UoL be able to issue proof of employment, including contracts for those staff who do not have them, to all EU staff – especially those who wish to apply for residency or citizenship?
7. Could guidance be issued to all recruiting managers as soon as possible to instruct them that there must be no discrimination against EU citizens applying for a job?
8. Will EU citizens (continue to) qualify for a state pension? Will there be any requirements additional to those that apply for British subjects? Will USS provision begin to discriminate between those who are and those who are not EU citizens in any way? Could guidance be issued asap on both SAUL/USS and state pension rights and any implications for EU citizens?
9. What will the consequences of Brexit be for UoL employees from EU countries working indirectly via a contractor?
10. Will the UoL be providing any reassurance to the employees of its outsourced facilities companies or making any provision in their outsourced arrangements?
11. Could the UoL lobby for the longest possible period of notice before any changes are implemented?
12. Can UoL HR collate information on reliable sources of information for their EU staff?

Many thanks in advance for your assistance with this.

Kind regards

Catherine

Catherine Morrissey

Secretary, University of London IWGB
https://iwgb.wordpress.com/

The union office is closed due to annual leave until the 8 July. Please contact Henry on 07922810798, or email Danny (danny.millum@sas.ac.uk) with any problems. Thanks!

La oficina del sindicato va a estar cerrada por vacaciones hasta el 8 de julio. Por favor contacta a Henry (07922810798) si tienes cualquier problema. Gracias!

One of our members has kindly written the post below:

The Parliamentary Labour Party is desperately trying to oust their democratically elected leader one week before the long awaited Chilcot Inquiry into the Iraq war. Jeremy Corbyn was elected a little over nine months ago with the biggest mandate of any political leader in British political history. His message that Labour needed to oppose austerity and defend worker’s rights chimed with 60% of the membership in a four horse race.

Labour MPs have never accepted Corbyn or his mandate and have tried to destabilise his leadership from day one with resignations, open criticism in the media and of course rebellions in the commons. They are seeking to use a secret ballot to overrule the democratic will of hundreds of thousands of people.

Meanwhile, Corbyn has taken the fight against austerity to the floor of the House of Commons and has beaten the Government back on cuts to disability independent living benefits, child tax credits and has forced a watering down of the dreadful trade union bill. His Labour Party have won every parliamentary by-election with increased shares in the vote and walked the London mayoral contest. Jeremy has been a great friend to members of the IWGB, by campaigning for them in the famous Three Cosas victory. Along with shadow chancellor John McDonnell, he was instrumental in raising the profile of the struggle, and both had previously helped support the University of London campaign that eventually secured the London Living Wage for all outsourced workers here.

Jeremy Corbyn helped us in our hour of need, now we must help him. We call on our members to attend rallies in defence of the Labour leader and to raise the issue with their MPs and local Labour Party offices. At stake is not a career but the survival of democracy in the labour movement.

The IWGB recently submitted an FOI request relating to flexible working at the University, and although many of the questions we asked have not been fully answered, we thought that the response would still be of some interest…

Could you provide details of all the flexible working requests received by the University of London from April 2015 to May 2016? Specifically:

1.       the number of requests made
2.       the number of requests granted
3.       the nature of each request (eg for reduced hours, for reduced days)
4.       a breakdown of requests made and granted by department
5.       a breakdown of requests made and granted by gender.

The University does not have access to easily calculable figures on flexible working requests. To provide this information would require level of manual checking of personnel files that would exceed the appropriate limits set in Section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act. This is set at 18 hours for Universities to determine whether information is held and then to locate, extract and retrieve that information.

Even if this was narrowed to a specific department, there is a significant risk that details of individual cases would risk identifying staff and details of their work arrangements. The University makes each Freedom of Information response as a public disclosure and therefore the Section 40 (2) ‘Personal information’ exemption is likely to come into play.

In order to fulfil the University’s Section 16 duty to assist and advise, I can provide figures relating to the number of staff whose working patterns or hours have changed. However, these instances may not necessarily reflect a new flexible working arrangement or give any indication of approvals or refusals.

Just a couple of things to quickly mention re the ongoing Higher Education pay dispute.

The employers have still failed to increase their current derisory offer of 1.1%.

Following the strikes last month, UCU are now instituting a series of rolling strikes across different HE institutions.

The University of London strike will take place on 22^nd June, which is next Wednesday.

Just like last time, the IWGB is completely in solidarity with this action, and we would ask members to respect the strike, and remind them that no-one need cross the picket line.

In other news, having voted at the last branch meeting to formally ballot for strike action ourselves, the IWGB will be conducting a postal ballot in the next few weeks.

More details will follow, but the plan is to coordinate any action with that of other unions (UNISON will probably also be balloting) and try and organise a full-scale shutdown of the University later in the year!

In case you didn’t get the email last week, the good news is that  IWGB candidate Mark Murphy has won the ICE re-match by a landslide (143 votes to 82, to be precise)!

Huge thanks to all of you for voting and/or encouraging others to vote. We really cannot do these things without your support.

Now we’re back on a firm footing to be able to start making some positive changes at the University. This is down to your support, so thank you!

Rebecca’s now revising for exams (some people are gluttons for punishment) and Mark is enjoying a well-earned holiday after the campaign trail. We’ll keep you all updated with next steps when they’re back.

The IWGB has learnt that the University of London plans to outsource a swathe of Student Central staff to current catering contractor Aramark.

This includes staff working in the bar, kitchen and the Lunchbox cafe as well as some reception workers.

Aramark already have a fearsome reputation at the University for cost-cutting, enforcing zero-hour contracts and discouraging union involvement, and these plans seem set to increase their presence still further.

The IWGB has sought to ascertain the plans for Student Central for some time, with the UoL hiding behind their usual ‘recognised unions’ only defence. As ever, those who suffer are the staff, whose opportunities to query and challenge these developments have thus been restricted.

We will let you know as soon as we have more details, but please do drop us a line at uol@iwgb.org.uk with any queries.