Congress business section 4: Pensions and employment rights

Employment rights

23 - Fractionalisation of hourly paid staff (City and Islington College, Lifelong Learning)

Congress calls upon the National Executive and national negotiators to explicitly include a demand for a programme of fractionalisation of hourly paid lecturing staff as part of all national negotiations on pay and conditions to begin to address the increasing casualisation of employment in the post compulsory sector.

CARRIED UNANIMOUSLY

24 - Composite: Fixed-term and Hourly Paid Staff (University of Brighton, Moulsecoomb; Transitional Arrangements Committee)

Congress notes that large numbers of academic and related staff in HE and FE are on fixed-term and/or agency and/or hourly-paid contracts.

Careers are thus disrupted, and hampered by chronic problems of status.

Many staff suffer very low pay, no occupational sick pay, and barriers to pension membership.

Congress instructs the NEC to combat casualisation across all sectors by:

• using the collective strength of the union to fight for proportional and/or permanent contracts and against the imposition of "self-employed" status
• making effective use of fixed-term and part-time legislation, including identification of suitable test cases
• seeking effective ways to challenge all claims of "objective justification";
• strongly resisting the use of "zero-hour" contracts as a loophole
• mounting a determined campaign for effective redeployment policies
• challenging employers to ensure that employment practices meet equality legislation
• intensifying the recruitment drive among fixed-term and hourly paid staff

CARRIED AS AMENDED

24A.1 - Brooklands College

Add:

• new sentence after 'membership' in line 5: 'Pay awards and job evaluations often discriminate against fixed-term and hourly paid staff'
• new bullet point at the end: 'drawing up and implementing a charter and/or advice note for Branches/Local Associations'.

CARRIED

24A.2 - Composite (London Metropolitan University, Tower Hill; University of Sheffield)

Add the following new bullet point to 'Congress instructs the NEC to combat casualisation across all sectors by':

• 'Making every effort to include hourly paid staff in national negotiations, including increases for hourly paid staff as part of any agreed national pay award'.

CARRIED

Other issues

25 - Inequalities between HE and FE pay (London Metropolitan University, Ladbroke and Spring House)

Congress instructs regional UCU officials to identify instances of workers in Higher Education and Further Education institutions engaged in equal work and equal value, but subject to dissimilar rates of pay and conditions, and to use the offices of UCU to pursue a political and legal campaign to eliminate such disparities of practice that may become visible.

CARRIED UNANIMOUSLY AS AMENDED

25A.1 - Transitional Arrangements Committee

First line, delete 'regional UCU officials', replace with 'the NEC'. After 'equal work', delete 'and', replace with 'or work of'.

CARRIED

26 - Cross-sectoral policy issues (Transitional Arrangements Committee)

Congress notes the growth in foundation degrees and the government's continued commitment to their rapid expansion and to the concentration of that expansion in FE colleges. Congress also notes the government's decision to enable colleges to apply for degree-awarding powers.

While strongly reasserting the commitment to widening access to higher education inherited from AUT and NATFHE, Congress also recalls the opposition of both unions to underfunded expansion and its damaging impact on the professional concerns and working conditions of members.

Congress therefore instructs the NEC to carry out, through the union's new cross-sectoral education committee, a thorough analysis of the growth of higher education in FE colleges and its future implications for both sectors. This should lead to the production of a discussion document for members identifying the key issues for debate, leading to further policy development at sector conferences and Congress 2008.

CARRIED UNANIMOUSLY

27 - On lack of recognition (London Metropolitan University Calcutta House)

Congress notes:

1. The failure of London Metropolitan management to abide by previous recognition agreements on the spurious grounds of the merger of AUT and NATFHE.
2. That London Metropolitan management is attempting to impede UCU meetings.
3. That the loss of negotiating rights is having - and will have - a serious effect on members' terms and conditions of work.

If London Metropolitan UCU does not report significant progress by September, Congress instructs the NEC to organise:

1. a national campaign to support members at London Metropolitan
2. an academic boycott of London Metropolitan University
3. liaison with the TUC and sister unions and other outside bodies to intervene with London Metropolitan University management.

CARRIED BY ACCLAMATION