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Ballot – open 20 October; ballot closes 28 November. Vote now.

If you haven’t voted yet, we urge you to vote in UCU’s national ballot on pay and working conditions. And we urge all members to vote YES to industrial action (strike and/or action short of strike). 

Please note the ballot runs until 28 November. It’s postal only; there’s no online option. You should therefore post your ballot paper by 26 November.

For a replacement ballot, go to: https://www.ucu.org.uk/WeAreTheUniversity

Why your vote matters

The pay offer this year is a mere 1.4% while inflation is 3.8%, meaning our pay has fallen 20-30% in real terms since 2007-09, a catastrophic cut.

This is all compounded locally by these five facts:

1. The VC’s decision to pay a miserly staff bonus of only £100, a cut of 72% on last year’s £350, despite commending our “hard work, dedication and commitment” (VC email ‘Herts achieves top 50 UK university ranking’ of 13 September’)
2. The VC’s refusal to reverse the hugely unpopular 50% parking charge rise
3. The VC’s refusal to make a hardship payment this year, unlike last year’s payment of £100-£300 depending on grade
4. The VC’s refusal to pay Outer London Weighting (though the Royal Veterinary College in Hatfield pays it to the tune of £4,065 a year); and
5. The VC’s refusal to disclose his salary until next year’s financial report while calling this “full transparency.”

Meanwhile, at last report, the University had cash and short-term deposits of £139.4 million.

Further, UCU is balloting to halt redundancies and, additionally, to protect national agreements, also under threat locally as the University has unilaterally stripped confidentiality from appraisals, and imposed line manager teaching observations in breach of our contracts.

Unison for professional staff is balloting too, aiming for joint action to get meaningful negotiations restarted. If you haven’t voted, please do so now and vote YES – a strong mandate is vital so VCs take fair pay and conditions seriously.

Staff opinion survey

We encourage all members to complete the Staff Survey, but please note that an extra question proposed by UCU and Unison – “Do you think the pay you receive adequately reflects the work you do?” – was refused for inclusion by HR (which the VC was quizzed about by UCU at last week’s Staff Q&A). This was another missed opportunity to address pay and workload issues fairly and transparently.

On the issue of the Staff Survey’s anonymity, which members are very correctly raising with us, senior managers have repeatedly assured us that responses are collated anonymously. The VC reiterated this at the Staff Q&A. Though we have no independent means of verifying this, equally, we have had no good or reasonable grounds to suspect otherwise. Should such grounds arise, we will immediately raise them with management and advise members.

Sign the petition against 50% increase in parking charges:

Sign the petition: scan the QR code below, or visit bit.ly/442UQuq

What is the University of Hertfordshire UCU branch?

The University and College Union is the recognised trade union and professional association for academics, lecturers, trainers, researchers and academic-related staff working in further and higher education throughout the UK.

Your local branch at the University of Hertfordshire represents its members, negotiates with management, and campaigns for better working conditions and pay. Read more about what we do.