Month: August 2020

(posted Tue Aug 25, 2020)

Dear Essex UCU members on FTC contracts incl GTA and GLA members,

All Essex UCU members have just been emailed about a legal briefing that Jo Seery, an employment solicitor at Thompsons Solicitors (www.thompsons.law), will be giving this coming Thursday 27^th August at 11am-12.30pm.

Jo will be explaining about the legal position with FTC at Essex including the GTA contract and possible claims people may have and what evidence they’d need to produce to take a claim if their contracts have not been renewed.

If people have questions it would be helpful if they could send them in advance to ucu@essex.ac.uk but she will try to answer queries at the end of the briefing, time allowing.

Search for your email today (25 Aug) from lcollins@essex.ac.uk for your Zoom invitation link to this brieifing or email  Lorraine Collins to attend.

14 Aug 2020

Dear UCU Members,

As you know, UCU has been attending many of the safety and business continuity meetings in which decisions about how to return to safe on-campus working are being made. We have been arguing that the proposed safety measures are both insufficient and a source of confusion among staff. We have also been arguing that we need to speak directly to all staff to determine their views on these issues. To this end, UCU Essex has put together a survey for all staff at Essex – not just UCU members – to help us get a clearer picture of what staff think about the current safety protocols, the efficacy of their communication, and what further measures should be in place to ensure safe campus working. The more people who fill it out, the better! As such, you may receive a link to this survey from multiple sources, but you will only be able to take it once. It should take about 5 minutes to complete and all responses are anonymous.

You can access the survey here: Covid-19 Safety and Campus Working Survey

PLEASE NOTE THIS SURVEY WILL CLOSE 5pm Fri 28 AUGUST 2020

Irene McMullin

Essex UCU branch President

Lots of people are wanting to register for the national UCU webinar events. They are listed at: https://fundthefuture.org.uk/events/

Such events are also usually listed in the “Friday” email that the national campaigns team send out (not happening throughout August but usually comes weekly)

All previous such events are able to be watched again on the national UCU YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/user/UCUwebteam

under “past live streams” (halfway down the page)

Any event we organise within the Essex UCU branch will be emailed to members separately.