Motions adopted.
 Academic Related Staff Annual Meeting 2012

Wednesday 21 March 2012

Motions 

Motion	Submitted by:	Title
	
1
	London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
	Fighting attacks on Academic Related Jobs 

2	University of Hull 	Protection of link between academic and academic-related staff
	
3	Academic Related Committee	Progression for Academic Related Staff
	
4	Academic Related Committee
	Outsourcing and Shared Services
	
5	Academic Related Committee
	Changes to Annual Meeting Standing Orders

Extract from Standing Orders relating to motions

Standing orders 2.6 states that ‘Resolutions passed at the annual meeting will be advisory. They will be submitted to the National Executive Committee, together with any advice and recommendations from the Academic-Related Staff Committee, and a copy of the draft minutes of the annual meeting’

Votes on motions will be by show of voting cards issued at the registration desk.   Please see staff at the registration desk if you have misplaced your voting cards. 

Conference is hereby requested to debate and vote on the following motions.

 Motion 1 		Fighting attacks on Academic Related Jobs 	
Proposer		London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine	

The AR annual meeting is deeply concerned about the attacks on AR jobs that started in many universities with the pay framework and in more recent years has been the result of outsourcing, reducing costs, deprofessionalisation and sharing services. This results in a poor, inadequate and unprofessional provision for students, lecturers and researchers. These cuts also affect the health of AR staff who try to continue to maintain standards with a lack of resources and inadequate staffing.

AR annual meeting calls on the union nationally to develop a list of AR contacts at all universities which have AR staff and calls on all branches with AR staff to urgently identify at least one rep dedicated to AR staff. These contacts will provide a two way route for information on issues affecting AR staff.

AR annual meeting mandates the AR committee to work with other national committees to gather data to fight redundancies affecting AR staff and to use this network in disseminating the work of AR staff to the branches that the committee represents.

Motion 2 		Protection of link between academic and academic 
			Related Staff 
Proposer		 University of Hull                                                         

Noting that some institutions have removed the title academic related from their statutes, this conference reiterates the strong link between the academic and academic related groups of staff, and calls on UCU to conduct a survey to determine the attitude of different institutions to the concept of academic related staff.
This conference also calls for advice and support to be further developed to assist local associations and branches in protecting and revitalising the link between  academic and academic related staff – in particular:

•	To ensure a common approach for individual career development for academic related, and recognition of work done (through role analysis) for academic staff;

•	To ensure that there is no impact on terms and conditions when staff are moved between categories, and that employment and other rights are common across these groups, harmonising to the best approach.

Motion 3 		Progression for Academic Related Staff	
Proposer		Academic Related Committee
		
This Conference notes that the Memorandum of Understanding between UCU and UCEA which ratifies the  Framework Agreement negotiated in July 2003 states
that:

"staff will have a normal expectation of annual progression up to the contribution threshold for their grade" .

Conference regrets that most of our employers have used dubious job evaluation techniques to renege on the agreement and to rob Academic-Related Staff of their expectations to progress to the top of the equivalent Lecturer or Senior Lecturer pay scales but instead to hold them at the tops of lower scales .

Conference instructs HEC to do all in its power to ensure that our employers keep to what they agreed and to make this a priority issue.

Motion 4		Outsourcing and Shared Services
Proposer		Academic Related Committee
	
This meeting notes:
- The announcement by the Government in November 2011 that it will be implementing the EU VAT cost-sharing exemption for shared services groups. This will make it easier for Institutions such as Universities to share their administrative/computer/library services.
- The suggestion by the Higher Education Minister that changes to the funding regime for HE in the UK means that EU procurement rules for publicly funded bodies no longer apply for HEIs, increasing opportunities and flexibility for outsourcing and procurement. 

In light of these developments, the meeting reiterates our opposition to outsourcing and shared services schemes and the impact these have on the jobs and working conditions of academic-related staff.

With the government’s push on ‘efficiency savings’ by whatever means Academic Related Staff are under more threat than ever before. This meeting calls upon the Academic Related Committee and the union nationally to vigorously oppose shared services and outsourcing schemes affecting Library, IT, Administration, Student Services, Facilities Management in HE.

Motion 5		Changes to Annual Meeting Standing Orders
Proposer		Academic Related Committee	
The Committee has agreed that the following amendments should be made to the Annual Meeting Standing orders. Amendment 1 was proposed due to previous confusion as to whether Committee members not also attending as branch delegates could attend the Annual meeting. Amendments 2 and 3 were proposed (in addition to amendments also already adopted to the Committee’s Standing Orders and in light of confusion at previous annual meetings), to clarify the categories of staff represented by the Academic Related staff committee, and eligibility to participate at the annual meeting. 
According to the Annual Meeting Standing orders, any such changes require endorsement by the Annual Meeting. The Committee therefore requests approval of these amendments.
1)	Paragraph 2.3. Amend as follows ‘ .. the meeting will include the members of the Academic-Related Staff Committee, including the National Executive Committee members appointed to the committee and the Officers and General Secretary, ex-officio.’
2)	Paragraph 2.4. Amend opening sentence as follows: ‘Each Higher Education branch/local association may send two voting representatives to the annual meeting ...’
3)	Paragraph 2.4. Amend end of second sentence as follows: ‘ .... and may include provision for the attendance of observers from across the union membership.’