Courses in the Midlands regions
Representing courses
Organising courses
Health & safety courses
Equality courses
Bargaining courses
Specialist courses
These are the courses for branch reps and activists currently running in Midlands regions.
If there are no dates listed for the course you'd like to attend, or if you'd like to be made aware of further dates, please register your interest here.

Challenging redundancy: February 2024
The threat of redundancy has never been more acute for UCU members. This course is for all branch reps & activists who are likely to be involved in challenging redundancies and/or supporting members facing redundancy.

Effective negotiating & bargaining skills: March 2024
This course is for those who are negotiating with management or those in the branch who want to learn more about the negotiating process. You will learn about the phases of negotiation, how to represent members effectively, how to develop arguments, define a bargaining strategy and respond to unfair tactics. This course will also touch on some of the practices taught in both strike school and organising for power.

H&S 1 - Induction (health & safety role and functions): December 2023
This course forms the first part of the health and safety training programme. The course is for new health and safety reps, or those who have been in the role sometime but never been trained. We also welcome those in the branch who want to further understand the role and legislation that enables health and safety reps to hold institutions to account.

H&S 2 - organising and bargaining for health and safety: April/May 2024
Participants need to complete the H&S 1: Induction, module before applying to attend this course. This is the follow on course from H&S 1, it is designed for health & safety reps who wish to further their knowledge and skills around inspections, risk, and bargaining around health & safety.

Job evaluation: A collective approach, January 2024
This one day course is for branch reps and activists who are involved and interested in learning more about the importance of trade union involvement and representation in job evaluation schemes. The focus of the course will be around the use of collective action wherever possible.

Rep 2 - representing UCU members: January 2024
This course is for reps who have completed UCU's Rep 1 course, or our introduction to case work (H&S1, or Barg for Equality) and are now actively engaged in representing individual members. The course assumes you are actively engaged with your branch and understand UCU's democratic structures both in the branch and nationally.

Representing individual members: An introduction to casework. 18 January 2024, Leeds - National course
This is a course for reps who are new to representing individual members or those who are considering becoming more involved in the direct representation of individual members. Those who have been practicing for some time may also find this course to be a useful refresher of best practice. If you are not a rep, but want to learn more about what it takes to represent individual members then the course is for you.

Understanding and handling media: February 2024
This is a course is for branch reps who are interested in learning more about handling both print and social media. The course will be taught by a member of the National Union of Journalists with support from UCU Press office.

Workload rep training 2: Workload campaign in action, inspections and investigations - 7, February, 2024, Online
This short course is open to UCU activists and reps who want to build upon their knowledge of workload as a health and safety hazard in the workplace. The UCU workload campaign gives us the tools to tackle increasing workloads and working hours. The failure of employers to protect staff from excessive workloads and stress is damaging our health, our students' education, and our ability to organise to defend ourselves and our sector In this course you will work through practical examples and explore ideas around how to use the safety rep functions to identify and reduce excessive workloads.
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