UCU Scotland campaigning & political work

Much of the campaign work UCU Scotland undertakes is aimed at the Scottish Parliament and political parties.

This work is underpinned by discussions with officials in the Scottish Government, the Scottish Funding Council, and other bodies. The latest news on political work can be found in UCU politics monthly - March 2013.

Happy International Women's day

Here is a  International Women's Day (.pdf) [794kb] poster produced by John Biggam from Glasgow Caledonian UCU

Governance Review

See our Higher Education governance review page and help ensure management of our institutions is made fairer and more transparent.

Pay

Scottish higher education institutions are included in the UK national pay and negotiating structures. However, funding and policy for higher education is decided by the Scottish Parliament and UCU Scotland works with MSPs of all parties to influence the budget outcomes.

Redundancy

Though funding is fairly stable, some universities wish to cuts jobs to make savings and increase surplus. As part of the UK campaign UCU Scotland is fighting redundancies.

Privatisation

INTO is private company that recruits foreign students and provides educational services in IT, vocational training and language teaching, and has been in talks with Glasgow Caledonian University. UCU wants to keep private companies out of education:

• The latest on the campaign against INTO at Glasgow Caledonian can be found here

Job security

As with national UCU, UCU Scotland is actively campaigning to end the use of fixed-term contracts in higher education. We have achieved significant breakthroughs to this end, aided by the Scottish Parliament, which has called for action to give contract research staff better status and job security.

In partnership with Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen, UCU Scotland achieved a breakthrough agreement to convert all researchers to open-ended terms and conditions. This has now been extended to other institutions and most universities are now promising to reduce the use of fixed-term contracts.

Scottish Parliament elections

The  UCU Scotland Manifesto (.doc) [165kb] was sent to prospective candidates and existing members of the Scottish Parliament ahead of the May 2011 elections. This document provides a useful pointer to the work and priorities of UCU Scotland: