Strike ballot opens on Friday As agreed by members in our meeting on 11 May, our strike ballot over pay spine reform, and University management’s insistence on linking it to terms and conditions, opens this coming Friday (26 May). If you are a UNISON support staff member at the University of Birmingham, you should receive…
Since our last safety update at the start of term, we’ve been consistently pressuring the University to take the national lockdown seriously, by reducing activity on campus as much as possible, reducing the number of support staff required as a result. While we’ve had some engagement from the University on which buildings remain open, which…
What is the pay spine and what are the discussions for? The structure of grades and points is how our pay is organised. Our yearly pay talks mostly involve increasing everyone’s pay by a percentage, but the pay spine talks are more nuanced and include negotiating the pay people begin on, how quickly they move…
We announced the result of our ballot on pay spine changes earlier this week. On an impressive 54.99% turnout, the yes vote to strike action was 89.63%. UK law around strike action is designed to make it as difficult as possible to get a result, by insisiting on a minimum turnout of 50% and that all votes have to…
Short summary of Friday (the day of strike) We had a fantastic day of strike action on Friday. We spoke to hundreds and hundreds of students and parents about our vision for a better University that would embody the spirit of democratic practices of work and learning. We have received overwhelming support from prospective students,…
Staff at the University of Birmingham were informed this morning that the ‘New Core’ system will no longer be going live for 4th February 2019 . In an email sent out from the Vice Chancellor’s mailbox, it was confirmed that the system launch has been postponed until June 2019 . While the email sent out…
