The three campus unions (Unite, UNISON and UCU) are pleased to announce that the projected deficit has reduced and the university are saying that they will fund the current projected deficit from reserves.  The proposed changes to terms and conditions are no longer being pursued by the university at this point in time.  As Unions our members’ collective will to push back on the proposals until there were more facts has been clearly vindicated.  Had we not done this members could have been in a worse position financially.  We will of course keep you updated as the financial situation develops.

This is the very positive result received at the last Joint Consultative and Negotiating Forum (JCNF) following our continued resistance to the University’s proposals to make staff cuts. Our negotiators were put under considerable pressure by senior management to agree to staff cuts and our strong position has paid off.

We also made progress on workloads, with management agreeing to hold a joint union partnership forum to properly address our serious workload problems. This is a positive step and our negotiators will continue to hold management to their commitment to engage in “open and honest” discussions.

Our negotiators have very firmly and consistently communicated our members’ health and safety concerns to UEB but these have not been resolved. These are more fully addressed in this Health, Safety and Wellbeing document, but our key concerns remain:

• that meaningful consultation, a legal obligation of our employer, has not taken place across the board and we cannot give our members assurances about the safety of the workplace.
• that staff will be forced to work on campus without enough consideration of their personal circumstances.

• that the concerns of those whose health and wellbeing is at risk as a result of working from home have not been properly addressed.
• that wellbeing issues emerging as a result of increasing workloads have not been addressed.