At 5am this morning, a squadron of bailiffs descended on the Green Heart and forcibly evicted our students from campus. This comes less than 48 hours after the Encampment has been served with a Possession Order, and represents an aggressive choice, clearly timed in order to punish and go unchallenged. Our unions strongly condemn this…
Updated Friday 21 June. After serious consideration by both the committee and members in our latest meeting on Friday 7 June, our consultation on the offer from the University is now open. You will receive your voting link by email, with a text voting link to follow shortly afterwards for those who would prefer to…
Joint statement from the UCU and UNISON branch committees We are writing in response to Adam Tickell’s message from the VC. He has announced that the university has decided to seek legal action against its own students based on their peaceful, disciplined and orderly protest. This protest asks us to not turn our gaze from…
Joint statement with Birmingham UCUWe have been made aware that students have set up an encampment at the University of Birmingham, as part of the global solidarity movement calling for an immediate and lasting ceasefire in the Gaza/Israel conflict, and calling for an end to all support for Israel in its attack and occupation of…
As we mentioned in our last post, the reballot for our dispute about pay and conditons at the University closed in February and our members made a clear decision to continue strike action, for the pay and terms and conditions we all deserve. In our most recent members’ meeting, members expressed very clearly that: We…
Rates of pay at the University dropped below the real living wage rate last month – there are now hundreds of band 200 and grade 2 staff (including those on the University’s new pay scale) who are being paid less than the amount the independent Living Wage foundation has assessed they need to meet essential…
We call on all staff to strike on 13 and 14 November In the absence of any improved offer from University management, members have again voted unanimously for strike action, which will take place on the 13 and 14 November. Key points for all University staff: Everyone’s support is valued: even if you felt you had…
We’ve already had support from MPs about our dispute with the University – MPs have tweeted publicly in support and we know others have been in touch with them. We’d like to continue this, and we know that MPs take account of the issues that are important to their constituents. As such we’d like to…
Updated 26 September to take account of this update from Birmingham UCU. At meetings on Thursday 14 September, members overwhelmingly backed the committee’s plan for strike action in the first week of term. This means that we are calling on all support staff to join us in taking strike action on: Thursday 21 and Friday 22 September…
Birmingham city council has recently declared effective “bankruptcy” with most news articles tracing the issues back to massive equal pay liabilities at the council. This does not tell the whole story though, and could worryingly give the impression that workers are to blame for the sorry state of council finances. Following repeated court judgements including…
