UCU: Bullying in post 16 education

Motion

Motion text: Congress notes:
1. surveys indicating growing management bullying in education, often related to workloads, restructuring, marketisation, and management aims to boost productivity;
2. huge costs in terms of staff turnover, sickness and burn-out where managers ignore the work/life balance and fail in their duty of care to staff;
3. bullying is not an individual's problem but the responsibility of the institution to stop and the union to resist.

Congress calls on the NEC:
1. to launch a major training campaign for UCU members and reps to fight bullying and harassment;
2. to organise a national conference on bullying and harassment;
3. to encourage UCU branches to collectivise anti-bullying action in post-16 institutions by:
a. organising bullying and harassment surveys;
b. negotiating anti-bullying policies and making them work through regular monitoring and training;
c. where this fails, organising collective responses including consideration of collective disputes and ballots for strike action.