Author Archives: David Moon

Want to Build the Union? Become a workplace contact

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Bath UCU is preparing a major recruitment drive aimed at increasing our breadth (more members) and our depth (members feeling more engaged) across campus.

Q: Why don’t people join the union?

Academic research shows the number one reason given is ‘nobody asked me to’.

Q: What’s the main way to increase union engagement?

The only variable identified as ‘highly statistically significant’ is whether a workplace does or does not have a union contact in it

As a first step it is therefore vital that we increase the number of workplace contacts and make better use of them.

You can find a list of current workplace contacts HERE.

If you’re interested in learning more, read on!

What is a workplace contact?

The role of a workplace contact is to let your branch know what’s happening in your workplace, and to help the union get messages to its members.

It’s a good learning opportunity and starting point for anyone interested in getting actively involved in the union.

What does being a workplace contact involve?

Workplace contacts could do one, a mix, or all of the following:

Act as a point of contact between the branch and members in your workplace:

  • Have your name listed on the branch website as your workplace’s UCU contact
  • Have conversations with members and non-members in the workplace in which you can share relevant union information with colleagues and other UCU members
  • Pass information about issues in the department up to the branch-level and see that they are taken up (and report back to workplace members, keeping them in the loop)
  • Keep notice boards up to date with UCU information and put-up UCU posters and distribute leaflets and newsletters round staff rooms and departmental colleagues
  • Make sure colleagues in your workplace ‘see and feel’ the union
  • Administrate a WhatsApp group for workplace members as a space to discuss issues; manage the email list for members in your workplace and send them tailored emails

Help in recruitment:

  • Either (i) inform the branch recruitment officer when new staff join your workplace; or (ii) directly email new staff or door-knock and invite them yourself, with leaflets.
  • Talk to existing non-members in the workplace and inviting them, or offering to put a committee member in touch with them if wanted

Help with wider branch organising:

  • Attend semi-regular meetings of the workplace contacts network to give updates on members’ feelings and potential issues.
  • Help with organising more off-campus socials

What does it not involve?

Workplace contacts are not expected to undertake casework (although they may also wish to become caseworkers and receive training) and they are not members of the branch committee (although committee members can be workplace contacts).

What defines a ‘workplace’?

It may be large, or it may be small: it may be a department, or it may be a group like CLT, or Skills, or Admissions & Outreach, or the SU, or Careers, or a group of administrative offices within a faculty….

The workplace may not be an entirely homogenous grouping with one designation, but rather a shared working area on campus. You will know better than anyone else.

If you are interested in becoming a workplace contact, please email the Branch President Ben Ralph (bdr25) and/or our Membership Secretary Katr Ehrig-Page (kmep20).

Health and Safety: heatwave advice

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Colleagues,

Today may be the hottest day ever recorded in the UK and bad as it might be outside, it’s even worse inside.

High temperatures at work

In the absence of any well-publicized advice from our employer on how to deal with high temperatures and humidity at work, the advice from the Health and Safety Executive is worth a look:

  •  add or remove layers of clothing depending on how hot or cold you are
  •  use a desk or pedestal fan to increase air movement
  •  use window blinds (if available) to cut down on the heating effects of the sun
  •  in warm situations, drink plenty of water (avoid caffeinated or carbonated drinks)
  •  if possible, work away from direct sunlight or sources of radiant heat
  •  take regular breaks to cool down in warm situations and heat up in cold situations
  •  raise the issue with your managers or, if you can, with your union or other workplace representatives

Go to the library

The University Librarian advises that:

… if it suits, colleagues are always very welcome to work in the Library – it is quiet and relatively cool as a building and open for all to use, with fixed PCs as well as wifi/power etc. (no need for cards at this time of year).

We now allow coffee and tea into the building, if they are in reusable cups, for those who prefer to work with caffeine.

TUC campaign

Given the effects of climate change, high temperatures in workplaces will only become worse for the foreseeable future. The TUC is campaigning on introducing regulations on high temperatures at work, which might at least give us the status of a chicken in a truck.

Your legal responsibility

In law (Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974), you are responsible for looking after yourself:

It shall be the duty of every employee while at work—

(a)to take reasonable care for the health and safety of himself and of other persons who may be affected by his acts or omissions at work; and

If you believe that your working conditions are not safe, get in touch with a union representative.

Our employer’s responsibility

In the same legislation, our employer is responsible for making it possible for us to look after ourselves:

(1) It shall be the duty of every employer to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health, safety and welfare at work of all his employees.

(2)Without prejudice to the generality of an employer’s duty under the preceding subsection, the matters to which that duty extends include in particular—

(e)the provision and maintenance of a working environment for his employees that is, so far as is reasonably practicable, safe, without risks to health, and adequate as regards facilities and arrangements for their welfare at work.