Members from across the country protest over Keele redundancies

On Thursday, a large rally of UCU members’ from across the country lobbied Keele University’s council over plans to close the School of Economic and Management Studies'  and current programmes in management, economics and industrial relations and human resource management, placing 38 of the 67 academic staff in the school at risk of redundancy. Following the rally and despite large support, Keele University's council approved the plan, but the campaign against the redundancies will continue.

To read more, click here: http://www.ucu.org.uk/index.cfm?articleid=3043

To sign the petition against the closure, click here: http://www.ucu.org.uk/index.cfm?articleid=3015

TUC ‘Speak up for public services’ Westminster rally and lobby, 1.00pm, Monday 9 June 2008

The TUC ‘speak up for public services’ campaign brings together the 26 unions with members in the public sector. It is speaking out for the six million public sector workers in the country including our members in FE and HE.

The rally and lobby of parliament is about the future of public services and will be calling for fair pay for public sector workers. It has been agreed that this will be a ‘representative’ lobby so that we ensure all 26 unions have members attending to speak to MPs about their own sector. We want to focus our lobbying efforts on the 50 most marginal seats – they are spread across parties – these are the MPs with the most to lose if they don’t listen to their constituents – their seats!  And our members are their voters!

We want to register members in the 50 most marginal constituencies who are able to come to lobby their MP with the TUC. If you are in one of the marginal seats and able to come down and join the rally and lobby, please e-mail Liz Shannon at lshannon@ucu.org.uk    We will also be asking members in every constituency to join the campaign by emailing their MP about fair pay for FE and HE staff and all public sector workers.

To find out who your MP is, click here: http://www.upmystreet.com/commons/l/

To find out if you are in one of the 50 constituencies, click here: http://www.ucu.org.uk/media/pdf/d/i/top50marginals.pdf

You can email your MP at this link: http://www.writetothem.com/

Challenging the Market in Education – Sign up now to avoid disappointment

As part of our joint work with NUT, UCU is organising a major conference examining the impact of the encroachment of market forces into the education sector. If you want to hear the latest academic research on the influence of the market and participate in workshops led by activists on a range of aspects of marketisation and privatisation.

To register for the conference, click here: www.ucu.org.uk/challengingthemarket

Essex university UCU launch referendum on INTO proposal

Essex university UCU continue their fight against the proposed joint venture with private company INTO. INTO and other companies want to set up companies to take over recruitment of international students in universities. UCU is campaigning nationally against any further encroachment of the private sector into tertiary education. Essex university UCU today launched an all-staff referendum on the proposal to demonstrate the strength of opposition to INTO. To read more on privatisation in HE, click here: http://www.ucu.org.uk/stopprivatisation  

Health Educators’ Conference in central London- 22nd April

UCU is working closely with our colleagues within the health unions with whom we have joint membership arrangements, and as part of this we’ve organised a conference on the future of health education on 22 April 2008 in central London.  If you are directly involved in the delivery of health education, this conference is open to you. This conference will provide a forum for a key stakeholder group to engage in that debate and to encourage debate around a range of issues in healthcare issues. The Health minister, Lord Darzi has been invited to address the conference on why there is a need for change in the delivery of healthcare and Professor John Appleby from the King’s Fund will speak on the financial backdrop to these changes. A panel discussion with contributions from UCU and health unions will also take place on the effect of these changes.

The conference is free, and if you would like to attend, please email Afshan Khan at akhan@ucu.org.uk  with your name and institution.

Special DAN event for UCU women 

Following overwhelming demand from members, the special DAN event for UCU women on Wednesday 7th May is now full. However, we are now putting members who would like to attend on the reserve list. Please note that further places will only be allocated to new members and those who have not yet attended any UCU training or are not branch officers. Attendance at the event is free, reasonable costs, including travel and childcare will be reimbursed from central funds.

To read more and to register for the reserve list, please e-mail Justine Stephens at jstephens@ucu.org.uk