UCU: Improvement of workload protection and working conditions

Motion

Motion text: We call for a clear commitment to improving the working conditions of academic and academic related staff in all future negotiations.

Underfunding in both pre-92 and post-92 sectors has led to staff being placed under increasing pressure to spend more time on teaching, research, and administration, without adequate support for clerical tasks such as photocopying. We question why the latter tasks are still routinely done by University academics when they have largely been removed from school teachers.

We therefore call for positive steps to be taken to improve workload protection and working conditions in academia. We believe that this should take the form of a negotiated contractual limit to the number of hours' work per week, and a practical and auditable commitment to employing more clerical, technical and administrative staff to support academic work. We urge UCU to make this a matter of priority.