Secretary’s letter…
Dear Colleagues, As some of us, had predicted the University’s COVID inspired benign support of professional staff has come to an end. Not only are we to suffer a below average annual pay rise, but also the University has begun to make compulsory redundancies. Not in keeping with past practices, the University has eschewed its responsibility to offer a voluntary redundancy scheme, which means that most of these redundancies will receive only a statutory rated compensation.
Even more insidiously, the Head of the Estates Management Maintenance Section, has indicated that large swathes of the maintenance team will be outsourced. He stated that the University will support a core team of university employees, but when pressed, admitted that the continuous cuts imposed on staff costs by the University Finance Committee will mean that the University will be unable to maintain and develop that central core service, which by implication will lead to more and more roles being outsourced. Significantly – his proposal is that the contractors will be running the team.
Meanwhile the University continues to squirrel away money into an endowment fund , pleading poverty, whilst claiming through Our Cambridge campaigns that it is supporting all professional staff.
The big question is – Where will it end? If the University is allowed to outsource a team of people, whose efforts carried the University throughout the pandemic shutdown, which services will they next turn to? Ironically, this comes at a time when many other Universities are returning to insourcing their services
It is our feeling that we need to stop the trend of compulsory redundancy and outsourcing. Please join us Monday and when we will discuss how we can campaign for this.
You may have noted that our sister union UCU is balloting for industrial action to protest the low pay rise. We have instructions from the Unite National Sector Committee to discuss ,consult and to ballot our own members, too. We will discuss the different options at Monday’s meeting. Please join us.
Will, CU Unite Branch Secretary
Time: Nov 1, 2021 01:00 PM Zoom