How safe are the plans for September?
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How safe are the plans for September?

Update 07.09.21 – Additional point added on areas where face coverings are required As September begins we find ourselves in a broadly similar situation to last year – coming out of a summer where restrictions have been minimal into a new academic year, in which the key driver seems to be to keep things as…

Initial reaction to VC’s email on “transition” to September
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Initial reaction to VC’s email on “transition” to September

While it’s a bit of a relief that Monday will not see radical changes to safety arrangements at the University, there were a couple of issues in the Vice Chancellor’s recent announcement on the University’s plans for the transition period to the start of the new academic year.  Firstly and possibly most urgently there is…

Counselling provision at University outsourced until at least the beginning of new academic year
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Counselling provision at University outsourced until at least the beginning of new academic year

UCU and UNISON, the unions representing mental health support workers at the University of Birmingham, are seriously concerned about changes made to counselling provision at the University last month. After years of underfunding and understaffing the University has elected not to replace counsellors after all but one of the existing post-holders left in March via…

University puts catering and conferences staff at risk of redundancy. Also seeks to force staff onto “flexible” contracts
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University puts catering and conferences staff at risk of redundancy. Also seeks to force staff onto “flexible” contracts

On Wednesday and Thursday last week all staff working in the University of Birmingham’s catering and conferences departments were invited to meetings with senior managers and HR. At these meetings roughly half of the staff (almost 120 staff in total), including chefs, supervisors and the whole Conference and Events Department were informed they were at…

Great marketing for the University?
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Great marketing for the University?

No to the ‘covid blip’ redundancies in Creative Media Joint blog-post with Birmingham UCU In a worrying sign that the University of Birmingham is looking to use the Covid-19 pandemic as a reason to justify outsourcing and redundancies, we have now been informed of a proposal to make up to 10 staff redundancy in the…

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Safety updates – cleaning services and surge testing

UNISON reps continue to highlight the unsafe situation in particular departments on campus. In particular we’ve been focusing on the situation in cleaning services, where all staff are still being asked to attend work despite access to many buildings being restricted or prevented entirely.  Over 70 cleaning staff so far have signed a collective letter…

UNISON safety reps raise serious concerns
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UNISON safety reps raise serious concerns

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…

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Emails with the University about safety concerns

Our email reporting concerns 22.01.21 Dear Simon, Gillian, Mark, I am writing on behalf of UNISON members further to discussions this week regarding serious safety concerns that we feel have the potential to put employees of the University at risk of serious and imminent danger, and particularly those working within the University nurseries and the…

Advice to members at start of spring term – updated 05/01/20
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Advice to members at start of spring term – updated 05/01/20

Following the government announcement of a new national lockdown on Monday the 4th January 2020 we will be keeping this post up to date with all of the latest advice for members. If your question isn’t answered below you can email us at unisonbham@bham.ac.uk, call us on 07964926949 or message us on Facebook or Twitter….