Transcript Slide 1

Researchers’ Workshop
•Your rights
•What needs to change
•How to make changes
Big contribution
Little reward
• Projects, experiments etc are short term
but research programmes are long term
• Can be demotivating – under-valued,
researchers take on main burden of risk
• Inefficient – promising researchers leave.
Lack of dissemination of information.
Break-up of teams. Transferable skills not
recognised
Researchers – a priority
• Negotiate agreements that increase job
security
• Negotiate on support for research careers
• Raise researchers’ issues with ministers,
funding councils and all interested parties
• We need more researchers to join us: your
voice is heard; issues raised; a stronger
negotiating position
BRANCHES in
over 600 colleges
and universities
BRANCHES first
port of call if you
have a problem
nearly 120,000
education staff
belong to UCU
BRANCHES send
delegates to
annual Congress
MEMBERS
BRANCHES have
elected officers
UCU is a democratic
organisation and
members vote on
branch, regional and
national decisions
BRANCHES run
by members who
volunteer to help
BRANCHES
negotiate with
your employer
REGIONS each has
a staffed Regional
Office to support
and help organise
branches (national
offices in Wales,
Northern Ireland
and Scotland)
Policies are decided at
annual Congress where
branches send delegates
to vote on their behalf
REGIONS also
elect a committee
to bring together
and support
branches in a
geographical area
NATIONAL
UNION
REGIONS run
training for branch
reps and
volunteers and
hold regular
meetings for
active members
across the region
In between Congress
decisions are made by a
National Executive
Committee (NEC) and
other groups of elected
members
UCU negotiates
nationally with
employers and the
government to win
improvements for
members and for
education
The National Executive
Committee (UCU
members) and full time
staff carry out union
policy – the most senior
official is the General
Secretary who is elected
by members every five
years
About UCU
• Negotiate your pay and conditions locally
and nationally
• Provide individual advice and support
(backed by UCU legal scheme)
• The voice of your profession – education
policy, research funding and strategy,
defending jobs, pensions, education
provision
Fixed term facts and
figures
The picture across the UK is that the
percentage of fixed-term contracts in use for
research staff is on the decline.
However, the figures for 2010/11 remain a
cause for concern:
68.9% (70.8% 2009/10)
Use of FTCs
However, there are huge differences in how
HEIs use FTCs for research staff.
We do know that FTCs are still routinely
used for the majority of first appointments but
some HEIs do appear to have moved some
research staff onto open-ended contracts –
others appear to continue to use FTCs for
the vast majority of research staff.
Use of FTCs some
examples
Institution
Sheffield
Liverpool
Manchester
Lancaster
Leeds
Cambridge
Bristol
Glasgow
UCL
Aberdeen
Researchers on FTCs (HESA figures)
10-11
09-10
Total (10-11)
90.7% 90.6% (1010)
87.6% 85.2%
(690)
86.4% 87.1% (1925)
85.1% 85.3%
(285)
79.9% 77.9%
(965)
62.8% 73.8% (3020)
44.4% 42.4% (1085)
15.2% 11.8%
(895)
2.6% 2.3% (2395)
2.1% 59.2%
(610)
Moving away from FTCS
We also know that behind those figures are some very
different realities:
•Some institutions continue to use FTCs for the vast majority
of their research
•Some have moved most staff to open ended contracts
•Some employers do little to find alternative employment at
the end of the FTC or fixed-term funding whilst others do
actively engage in seeking to avoid a dismissal at the end of
a FTC or fixed-term funding period.
Your Rights
•Statutory rights: FTC Regs, Equal
Pay, redundancy payments, statutory
maternity provisions
•Contractual rights: pay, hours of work
•Negotiated policy: progression,
redundancy avoidance schemes,
protection of FTC staff, enhanced
maternity provisions
Fixed Term Employees
(Prevention of Less Favourable
Treatment) Regulations 2002
Employer cannot treat a fixed-term employee
any less favourably than a comparable
permanent employee unless such treatment
can be objectively justified.
Fixed Term Employees
(Prevention of Less Favourable
Treatment) Regulations 2002
The use of successive fixed-term contracts
will be limited to four years, unless the
continued use of a fixed-term contract is
justified on objective grounds.
Objective Justification
UCU has always held that fixed-term funding
should not be used as a ‘blanket’ objective
justification for keeping staff - especially
researchers - on fixed-term contracts.
Our position has now been vindicated in the
case of Ball v Aberdeen University.
Ball v Aberdeen
• Dr Andrew Ball offered a 4th ftc
• Sought confirmation that he had been
made permanent
• University: no guarantee of further funding,
used as objective justification
• Tribunal said that short-term funding could
not automatically provide justification to
use a further ftc. Dr Ball made permanent
Consultation
• Lancaster University v UCU (EAT). UCU won.
University failed to consult over potential FTC staff
redundancies (with the aim of avoiding the dismissals)
• Stirling won an appeal (02/12) against UCU on the issue
of the legal obligation to consult UCU in collective
redundancy situations relating to FTC staff
• UCU believes that the Stirling decision is inconsistent
with previous decisions and are seeking leave to appeal.
Improved Security?
The legal rights of fixed-term and open-ended staff
are the same in relation to dismissal:
Dismissals must be for a ‘fair’ reason
There can be no unfair selection for redundancy
There should be consultation about dismissals
(collective and / or individual)
The employer is under a duty to seek ways of
avoiding redundancies
After 2 years’ service there is the right to
redundancy pay
Improved Security?
Improving security of employment means more
than securing permanency or an open-ended
contract.
It means:
Staff being treated as an integral part of the
University community – a cultural change
Ensuring that resources are managed in such a
way to avoid redundancy situations
Breaking the employment link between individual
research projects and individual researchers
Having effective systems in place to redeploy staff
as and when necessary
Negotiating policy
1. Establishing FTC policy along UCU
guidelines
2. Once policy agreed, implementation at all
levels i.e. HR; line manager or PI is vital
3. Publicity, transparency and good
communication at the local/departmental
level is very important
Responses to
short-term funding
Centrally structured and managed
communication between PIs working in
similar fields about forthcoming projects
and grant applications can support forward
planning and clarity about available
options
Responses
• Researchers work across a number of
projects within centres and clusters. Can
support retention and development of
research capacity
• Performance related issues should be
managed according to relevant policies
• Better monitoring, record-keeping and
communication
Responses
• Putting in place mechanisms to maintain
employment where a researcher’s work is
likely to continue eg bridging funds
• Proper, fair and consistent redundancy
processes
• Active redeployment policy – up to a year
before funding ends. Requires good
communication, planning, joining together
recruitment procedures with at risk staff
Research Excellence Framework
• Research environment – how supportive,
especially early career researchers
• Many excluded from REF but under it must
support researchers who work on projects
• UCU believes that to demonstrate a good
research environment departments should
show evidence of improving security of research
only staff for example support for research staff
moving between projects and evidence of
support for research careers.
How do we create sustainable
research careers?
• Are research careers really that different
from others? Only a stepping-stone?
• How do we increase job security and
create clear career paths?
• What are the opportunities to achieve this?
National role profiles, REF, Concordat, full
economic costing, CROS, Researchers’
Charter. How can we use them?
• UKRSA working with UCU
What Can You Do?
• Join UCU ( www.ucu.org.uk/join )
• Encourage colleagues to join
• Your rights: Researchers’ Survival Guide
www.ucu.org.uk/index.cfm?articleid=3228
• UCU Researchers’ Network
www.ucu.org.uk/elists
• Help your branch – you can do as much or
as little as you are able