Royal College of Art
Age Profile Of London Members
Alan Boyer – Obituary
Bath University
Passive Smoking Deaths
Employment Law Changes Coming into Force in 2005
Local Government Pensions Crisis
Job Evaluation Survey
HENAC Constitutional Changes
Royal College of Art
Following problems of implementation at a number of Institutions on the National Framework Agreement the latest to be faced with a union walkout on non-implementation of the Framework is the Royal College of Art. Amicus and other unions believe that the RCA are in breach of national agreements regarding the implementation of the National Framework Agreement and the implementation of job evaluation at the College. Amongst other things the College has not granted facilities time to accredited reps and has also refused to allow more than one representative from each of the unions to attend steering group meetings. This is a clear breach of the JNCHES Role Evaluation and Job Evaluation guidance. Naomi Nicholson, Regional Officer with responsibility for the College has written to the Director of Administration outlining the issues and requesting a meeting as soon as possible to negotiate a move to working with the College to implement the Framework Agreement. If you would like further information about the situation at the College please contact Naomi Nicholson.
Age Profile Of London Members
As part of our organising campaign for the Higher Education sector one of the things we did was survey the age profiles of London Region. We wanted this information to see whether there is going to be a crisis in the sector with the loss of skills and experience when staff retire or take early retirement/redundancy, and also to reinforce our assumption that more membership recruitment needs to be targeted at younger workers The survey makes for very interesting reading, of all the members in the sector in London 37% are aged over 50, 35% are between 40-50, 23% are between 30-40 and the smallest group with only 5% are those aged under 30. Mike Robinson, National Officer said “this small survey highlights the problems we are building for ourselves in the future, we need to recruit more young people, they are the activists, officers and trade union officials of tomorrow. Our problem is how to engage them in the trade union movement. We also need to look at the survey with regard to any skills shortage that may happen in the future and what we can do now to try to combat this’. For further information about recruitment within the sector and how you can play your part please contact the Higher Education Office in Coventry on 02476-227522 or email the office at Vera.titmus@amicustheunion.org
Alan Boyer – Obituary
It was with great sadness and shock that we have heard of the death of Alan Boyer. Alan was a highly regarded and very active colleague and will be greatly missed. Alan was a delegate to the Amicus Technical staff Regional Advisory Committee, delegate to ADC and heavily involved in one of the first HERA pilot studies. Alan’s work was as part of the Magnetics group in the Physics department at the University of Hull. It has been proposed that a memorial prize in Alan’s name be established, the prize will be known as the ‘Alan Boyer Prize for Practical Physics’. The prize will awarded to the best final year undergraduate Physics student and a technician will be involved in the selection panel. If anyone would like to contribute to the prize fund then please send a cheque made payable to ‘The University of Hull’, write ‘AB prize’ on the back of the cheque and send it to either Professor Dyer in the Physics department or David Tayler in the Science and the Environment Faculty Office, University of Hull, Cottingham Road, Hull, HU6 7RX.
Bath University
The three trade unions involved in negotiations at bath University have walked out after managers and other senior staff ‘excused themselves’ from the job evaluation process that all other colleagues are going through. The unions agreed unanimously to suspend framework talks and quoted a line from George Orwell ‘all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others’. It is a basic principle of the framework negotiations that the process is ‘open, fair and transparent and treats everyone equally’. Mike Robinson, National Officer said, “Amicus, in conjunction with the other unions has serious concerns about this decision at Bath, it is outrageous that staff above and including professors may be excluded from the process. Pay inequality is rife in academia and this evaluation process was our opportunity to ensure this situation was rectified. We will be working hard to try to resume negotiations as soon as possible and hope for a fruitful outcome”.
STOP PRESS – There has been a climb down by management at Bath who have agreed to include all unions on the steering committee and that all posts will now be evaluated although some will be done by evaluating representative samples. For further information about the situation at Bath University please contact Amicus Vice Chair at Bath, Derek Nethercote on d.w.nethercote@bath.ac.uk
Passive Smoking Deaths
Passive smoking kills more than 11,000 people a year in the UK according to a study by the British Medical Journal. This figure is much higher than was previously thought. The study also gives a figure for people dying from second-hand smoke in the workplace – over 600 – for the first time. Leading health professionals said the findings showed that a complete ban on smoking in public places was needed to protect not only customers but more importantly those who worked in such establishments. Last November’s Public Health white paper proposed a ban in all public places with the exception of pubs that do not serve food. At the time many in the medical establishment criticised the proposals for not going far enough, the result of which is that many medical professional have shown their support for Liverpool’s bid to introduce a complete ban on smoking in all workplaces, which is due before the House of Lords later this month.
Employment Law Changes Coming into Force in 2005
The DTI has announced that from April 6th 2005 certain new provisions will come into force. These are amendments to the Employment Relations Act 2004, which includes, amendments to the statutory procedure by which trade unions can obtain recognition for collective bargaining purposes, clarification of the law to ensure that dismissal on grounds of trade union membership or activities is unlawful regardless of length of service or age, the right for employees not to be dismissed or suffer other detriment because they are summoned or have been away from work on jury service, provision for the Secretary of State to make grants for trade union modernization and measures to improve the enforcement of the national minimum wage. For further information please go to www.dti.gov.uk/er/er_act_2004.htm
Local Government Pensions Crisis
The Higher Education National Advisory Committee (HENAC) have passed a resolution saying that at an appropriate time members in the sector who are affected by the pensions proposals should be balloted. However at present talks with Government are still ongoing and are looking hopeful so we will see the outcome of those talks before we move forward with the ballot. If any member is affected by the pensions issue and would like to comment or discuss the proposal please contact the Higher Education Office in Coventry on 02476-227522 or email the office at Vera.titmus@amicustheunion.org
Job Evaluation Survey
We have started to receive completed survey forms back from reps, we would like to encourage all reps to complete the survey and send/email it back to Vera Titmus at the Coventry office. This survey from HR managers gives us an indication of how far forward in the JE process they believe your institution is and also highlights any issues/problems or partnership working that may have happened. If you have not received a survey form or have deleted the survey in error please contact Vera at Vera.titmus@amicustheunion.org
HENAC Constitutional Changes
At the last HENAC meeting it was decided that the sector should acknowledge the wider participation and diversity of the sector. With the merger came the various other groups of workers working in the Higher Education sector particularly Clerical, Administration, Estates, as well as other traditional areas of Academic or related staff and Technicians. A concerted campaign is being run to encourage staff representatives from the various sections within the sector to participate more fully in the political and industrial work of the sector. Regional Education Committees will be co-ordinating nominations and/or elections to a new HE committee to be known as Higher Education Industry Committee (HENIC). Nominations are open to all Amicus workplace representatives via the local Regional Education Committee. There will be 2 delegates required per region to HENIC as well as 4 seats for women representatives with nominations being sought for the women’s seats on a national basis. If you know of anyone who would be interested in wider participation please contact your Regional Officer or the Higher Education Office in Coventry on 02476-227522 or email the office at Vera.titmus@amicustheunion.org
This bulletin has been produced by Janet Golds, Research Officer for the Higher Education Sector.