Bournemouth University UCU may ballot over effective de-recognition

The motion permits the branch to seek permission from the national union to ballot its members on industrial action - from working to contract to all-out strikes - within an unspecified time frame. The campaign is designed to persuade senior management at BU to resume meaningful consultation and negotiation with UCU, in contrast to a pattern of refusals to do so over the past year.
 
Over the past year, the employer has:

• failed to consult on changes to the established working practices of UCU members and the creation of legal liabilities and obligations on UCU members in a proposed Student Charter.
• failed to engage in a meaningful and genuine consultation on Equality Assessment with the result that a fundamentally defective process which may discriminate against vulnerable groups or individuals is about to be rolled out.
• refused to negotiate on the contractual changes affecting UCU members resulting from the introduction of a Common Academic Structure (which seeks to impose standardised, semesterised patterns of delivery across the university, with significant changes to, and intensification of, members' workloads and significant restrictions on annual leave).
• failed to consult with UCU on the outsourcing of programme delivery and assessment to private, for-profit companies.

David Heathcote, branch chair of Bournemouth University UCU, said: 'The employer's persistent refusal to engage in meaningful and responsive consultation and negotiation on matters affecting our members amounts to the de facto de-recognition of UCU here at Bournemouth, leaving half the academic staff without effective representation at a time of sweeping change across the sector and at this university.
 
'We hope that management will honour their obligations and resume proper consultation and negotiation with the recognised trade union, and that no ballot of members becomes necessary.'
 
The full motion, adopted unanimously with one abstention:

If the employer continues to fail to engage in timely, meaningful consultation with UCU BU on matters affecting the employment of our members or fails to take account of the views of UCU BU in related decision making, or continues to fail to negotiate with UCU BU on matters deemed by UCU BU to require negotiation or otherwise continues to disenfranchise our members, UCU BU will ballot its members on industrial action. Should the ballot produce a majority in favour of industrial action UCU BU will also ask the national UCU to impose a national and international boycott of BU.