Newcastle University UCU Branch Newsletter – October 2026

Here are a few quick updates. The branch committee is busy negotiating over grievance and disciplinary policies, workload, reorganisations, ‘reward’ (including promotion and pay gaps) and trying to extend solidarity to branch in dispute. We will report on this and create space for discussion at an upcoming branch meeting details to follow.

 

Campaign on workload

Today is the last day in the workload survey being conducted by our friends in campus union UNISON all Newcastle Uni employees can fill it in. We have important negotiations on workload and stress coming up.

UNISON Newcastle University Workload and Stress survey – Fill in form

Solidarity with other UCU branches

Please sign the petition for Aberdeen Uni UCU activist and friend of the branch David Anderson being victimised for trade union activity.

Stand up for trade unions: Reinstate Professor David Anderson – UCU petitions

Goldsmiths UCU have been on indefinite strike since the summer please consider donating to their fighting fund.

Support Fund – Goldsmiths University and College Union

A Special Higher Education Sector Conference (SHESC) was held online on Wednesday 14th October, and three motions were discussed over three hours (link to final report including motions). Motion 1: Secretary of State Dispute was passed as amended, which meant that motion 2 fell. Motion 3: For UK-wide industrial action, which was sent by our branch, was moved by Joe Redmayne (our Health and Safety Rep) and seconded by Beth DeBold (our Anti-casualisation Rep), who argued for the urgent need for collective action to save higher education. Unfortunately, motion 3 was not passed with a tie in for and against votes (64/64), though this remains policy from our Congress in May.

Policy Joint Negotiating Committee

In the JNC on 14 October the campus unions objected to the publication without agreement of the sickness absence policy and the attempt to push through three significant policies together: grievance, disciplinary and bully/harassment. We had several issues with these proposed policies, including suggestion that there has to be grounds defined by the policy for an appeal in disciplinary cases (this is a statutory right). We also emphasised that changes HR insist on making to policies need to be assessed for workload impacts (too many new policies add work without additional staff), and should be evidence-based.

Finance meeting

The campus unions met with the Director of Finance updating us on the finances now student recruitment figures are clear. These were as good as might be expected, but the increase in overall student numbers is taking place on a significantly reduced staff base, impacting our workloads. At least the university has better contingency planning now, and some lessons were learned from our dispute. There will be the opportunity for all staff to ask questions about the university’s financial position in an upcoming Webinar (11 November). We asked about capital spending plans, the ‘India campus’/transnational education. Our concerns this cycle centre on the health (and other) impact of increased workload, top-down policies adding new work, increasing surveillance of tasks and performance and what UEB mean by increased ‘efficiency’.

Joint Negotiation Committee on Reward, 21 October

There will be an academic promotions round and a pay review this year but there is no indication yet about the timing or whether promotions will be capped, as they were last year. There is some work underway on the gender pay gap and we have asked for further information about pay gaps and bonuses by job families. We discussed how increasing workloads across academic and professional services posts is making issues like promotions and job evaluation difficult and how there is low morale among colleagues, leading to the withdrawal of any goodwill.

There was a robust discussion of the inadequacy of change management at NU, focusing on the poor handling of multiple change processes this academic year, with negative impacts on colleagues across unions.

A reminder to colleagues that HE workers can now avail of Bluelight discounts https://www.bluelightcard.co.uk/en

Prof Arday has been cleared of all counts of plagiarism, again. Too late. This branch wrote a motion that passed Higher Education Committee on how the union should respond in defence of members facing such vexatious pile-ons. We are developing a solidarity toolkit

Change in the University

Please attend the upcoming Townhalls about Next Gen Newcastle, the university’s finances and ask questions. Our management need to be transparent with staff and work harder to restore confidence after. The UEB are talking about change to ‘academic shape’ and PS transformation. We have concerns about the language of values, efficiency and parity of esteem. All this sounds good but what does it mean in practice? Staff cost reduction? Dodgy honorary professorships? University Defence Alliance?

University Health & Safety Committee (UHSC)

The University Health & Safety Committee was held on 23 October 2026. Joe Redmayne (H&S rep) put forward a report that recommended measures to monitor excessive workloads and prevent causes of work-related stress and illness. The report outlines a review of stress risk assessments for all future restructures; improving workload and planning models; acknowledgement of the link between overwork and sickness absence; and using student-to-staff ratios (SSRs) to predict and prevent stress for meaningful monitoring.

You can soon read the full UCU H&S October 2026 Report via https://ncl.web.ucu.org.uk/ Campaigns)

A gentle reminder that the H&S Workload training session takes place on Wednesday, 4 November, 12:00-14:00 at the Branch Office. Sign up by emailing John on ucu.office@ncl.ac.uk