- Ensuring full implementation of the collective agreement to move teaching members from grade 6 to grade 7 and acknowledgement of previous work within new contracts
- Protecting our pensions in coordination with national UCU strategy and solidarity with other branches
- Committee accountability and transparency; regular minuted branch and committee meetings with a focus on inclusion and democratic debate
- Respecting democracy and members’ preferences; prioritising accurate, full and timely information that allows for reasonable and sensible decision-making, particularly in relation to phase 2 of cuts and changes and in relation to the university’s strategic programme on portfolio review, expectations and workload, strategic alignment and ways of working.
- Ensuring reasonable workloads for all staff
- Addressing casualisation and grade drift where those on lower grades are taking on heavy burdens without appropriate resourcing, time or remuneration
- Challenging the misuse of Campus Jobs, and similar, to hire researchers or other staff on substandard contracts with fewer protections
- Protecting members’ interests through fair approaches to individual casework and proactive negotiations with management on a collective basis
- Resisting the introduction of hot-desking and opposing the reduction of office-space
- Care of our students and opposing the positioning of students as “customers” from whom we can extract revenues in innovative and unethical ways.
We are a grassroots solidarity group of University of Reading staff and supporters, seeking to create clarity on & organise against the spin and misrepresentation that has characterised the debate on proposed cuts at Reading. To join our mailing list, please email: ReadingBTL@protonmail.com
