Motions adopted
Academic Related Staff Annual Meeting 2011

Wednesday 16 March 2011

Motion 1 	Academic Related Committee (amended)

The Back Office - On the Front Line	

The reckless zeal with which the Tory led coalition government and the devolved governments are seeking to ensure that efficiency savings are secured by cutting ‘back office’ posts in Universities and Colleges is shocking.  Academic Related and Support staff nationwide are under threat from reorganisation, restructuring and departmental closures, and now we understand that collaboration between Universities is likely to affect Academic Related and Support Staff jobs even more seriously.  
A full complement of Academic Related and Support staff is essential to Universities and Colleges. Amongst other vital roles they ensure that students are properly registered, collect tuition fees, organise exams and finally graduation.  Academic Related Staff include the professional staff, administrators, IT staff and librarians without whom Universities and Colleges cannot operate. This AGM calls on the Academic Related Staff Committee to fight job losses among Academic Related and Support staff as a matter of urgency.	
Motion 2	Academic Related Committee
						
Partnership Working and Shared Services Between Universities

Top Universities Unite for Success’ was the bombshell that hit staff at the Universities of Nottingham and Birmingham when they learned that they would be working in collaboration.  UCU colleagues had been given no warning of this new venture despite ‘partnership working’. 
The announcement stated that the Universities were facing challenging times and could work together in the following areas:
•	joint academic appointments
•	teaching, learning and student experience 
•	research initiatives 
•	 management and administration.   
UCU colleagues, both Academic and Academic Related, believe that this sudden announcement represents just the start of shared employment. Shared employment means job losses.   
AR staff are continually fighting reorganisation, departmental closures and restructuring. This appears to be another attack on their employment. This AGM calls on the Academic Related Staff Committee to support members in addressing their real concerns over this.
			
Motion 3 Academic Related Committee

Mental Health and Hidden Disabilities 	

Last year’s annual meeting passed motion 1 calling for collection of data on mental health conditions and hidden disabilities affecting academic related staff and production of a digital repository of best practice for branches. This was broadened to all HE staff by motion HE41 at HESC. 
Whilst acknowledging the work so far undertaken to effect this, we believe more needs to be done to identify the different types of conditions that exist in society.
It is crucial that members with mental health conditions feel acknowledged and supported by their union and that their conditions can be declared and de-stigmatised particularly as the potential for discrimination when it comes to redundancy is grave.

UCU needs representation of those with mental health conditions on the relevant committees to increase awareness comprehensively of mental health conditions.  This meeting calls upon the ARSC to liaise with the DMSC with regard to the possibility of establishing a mental health working group. 
Motion 4 Open University

Changes to Working Environments

The current debate about student fees leads to degrees frequently being perceived as commodities to be bought, rather than qualifications to be earned. In the same way a University's staff are seen as the means of production rather than autonomous individuals providing intellectual input into educating students. Academic-related staff are the backbone of the support structure in universities but are frequently being seen by management as units of production to be accounted for like battery chickens and are being treated in the same way with inferior changes to the working environment and petty rules.
We call upon the Academic Related Staff Committee to vigorously oppose this attack on our working environment and the perception of our contribution to the student experience.
Therefore, this meeting requests the ARSC to carry out a survey to collect and analyse data on changes imposed to working environments and any outcomes that have been obtained by UCU intervention, from as many branches as possible, and to produce information about best practices to be made available to all UCU branches.
Motion 5 Leeds University
Defending Jobs and Grades at Leeds University

This meeting notes that, at Leeds University, the management has initiated numerous reviews with the aim of restructuring the University and cutting posts.  Many of these reviews present a particular threat to academic related staff.  For example, the Student Services Review attempts to transfer the management and accountability for L&T support away from every school and  department to a new layer of management it seeks to introduce in Faculties.  This would represent the loss of roles, undermining of the academic team and downgrading for many academic related members in the schools and departments.  Leeds University UCU has a good track record of defending its AR members, notably in a successful campaign against red-circling in 2006.  This meeting agrees to fully support Leeds University UCU in its forthcoming battles to defend the jobs and grades of its members and to publicise their campaigns as widely as possible.
Motion 6 LSHTM (amended by Academic Related Committee)
Change to rule 1.4 of the Standing orders of the academic-related staff committee and academic-related staff national annual meeting.
Acknowledging:
the particular vulnerability of academic and other related staff in the current attack on education by the government
the risk of losing valuable experience from the 'related' category within the UCU 
the rules of the National Executive Committee
LSHTM UCU proposed a change to rule 1.4 of the Standing orders of the academic-related staff committee and academic-related staff national annual meeting. Insert at the end of the first sentence 
, if not employed at the time of nomination, have been employed on such a contract within the last year. 
So the first sentence now reads
To be eligible for election or co-option to the committee, candidates must be in good membership standing and be employed in an academic-related role, and if not employed at the time of nomination, have been employed on such a contract within the last year.
  
E1. Emergency Motion to Academic Related Staff Annual Meeting, 16 March 2011

Academic Related Committee (amended by Leeds University)

This annual meeting of academic related staff notes that members in over 60 institutions covering the overwhelming majority of pre 92 universities are about to take strike action in defence of our hard earned pension rights. This action has been forced on us by the employers' insistence on trying to press through unacceptable, unnecessary and damaging changes in our pensions and by their refusal to return to the negotiating table.

We are confident that academic related staff members of UCU will play a full part in this battle . Members in pre 92 institutions have consistently indicated that they regard the defence of their pensions as being of the highest priority.