Category: Branch Meetings

Agenda: UNISON Branch Meeting agenda August 2025.docx (requires a UoB login)

Minutes and Recording

Minutes: https://uob.sharepoint.com/:w:/t/grp-unisonexecutive/ERDhUsV-e61Jn9pGeLQ4o_gBIjYhA-KHUl6BJ1b3J6v8zg (Requires a UOB login)

Recording: https://uob.sharepoint.com/:v:/t/grp-unisonexecutive/Eb_q7hpmlR1EjwBAT74ru-wBixzKeVCAiSvq2_ggDP5adQ?e=XHIViC (Requires a UOB login)

Branch Meeting agenda

09.07.25, 12:00-13:00

Welcome (AK)

Acceptance of minutes and matters arising from previous meeting (AK)

1. Branch Meeting Minutes 20.05.25.docx 

2. Branch Meeting-20250520_130427-Meeting Recording.mp4 

Branch Meeting action points (ECK)

ECK, NS, AT/MS Ensure branch kept updated with 25/26 pay consultation decisions and timescales. VOTE NOW!

NS, ECK – Take forward poll of members who didn’t receive ballots (/why they didn’t vote) – 30 responses. Last chance to submit.

AT, ECK, CR, LM – improve branch access to learning and training.

AK, ECK, AT/MS – add case request form and JTU rep contact info to website

Branch secretaries’ report (NS/VR)

Cases and restructures (VR)

Other activities and campaigns (VR/NS)

Chairs’ report (AK/ECK)

Branch Committee recent votes (AK)

Alex Kidd, Sophie Hunt, Mia Smith, Alex Tissandier and Elle Chilton-Knight as Assistant Membership Officers

Report from HE Service Group Executive AGM (ECK)

Agenda items

Report from Q&A with the Chief People and Financial Officers (AK/VR/NS)

December 3rd International Day of Persons with Disabilities activities (NI)

Open floor – contributions welcome by audio, video, or in the chat.

Discussion on CALD strike action (UCU) – how to support colleagues and signing open letter to VC

EDI

Items for July/Aug Branch Committee meeting (AK)

Date of next meeting: TBC – announced in the header banner and as an update on the union website homepage, plus invites in calendars.

Branch meetings are your chance to stay up to date with branch activity and to raise issues with other branch members.

Meetings are held online on Microsoft Teams. You should receive a (private) invitation in your calendar about a week before the meeting.

A Microsoft Teams link will also be shared via email prior to the meeting.

Branch Meeting agenda

1. Welcome (AK)

2. Minutes of the previous meeting (AK)

3. Branch Meeting action points (ECK)

3.1 AT/MS – section for upcoming meetings and UNISON learning – in progress, update

3.2 NS/ECK – Take forward poll of members who didn’t receive ballots (/why they didn’t vote) – in progress, update

4. Branch secretaries’ report (NS/VR)

4.1 JCNC update (NS)

4.2 Restructure updates (VR)

4.3 Other activities (VR/NS)

5. Chairs’ report (AK/ECK)

5.1 Branch Committee recently voted in favour of:

5.1.1 3x solidarity messages and donations to striking branches

5.1.2 Exploring 2x lightweight branch banners

5.1.3 Stopping X/Twitter account updates

5.2 Update from extraordinary meeting of the Higher Education Service Group Executive (ECK)

6. Membership update

6.1 There were 13 joiners, 16 leavers in April – net decrease of -3

6.2 SU Membership – no new joiners in April

7. SU update

8. Agenda items for discussion

8.1 Questions to the Chief People and Financial Officers – deadline 09:00 Monday 2 June (9 responses so far)

8.2 HE parliamentary lobby 3rd June (NS/VR)

8.3 Supreme Court ruling (CF, TB)

8.4 Disabled members network – establishing a Working Group and PIP work (KT/N/VR)

9. Open floor – contributions welcome by audio, video, or in the chat

10. Items for June Branch Committee meeting (ECK)

11. AOB

11.1 Reminder of national ‘No more austerity 2.0’ demonstration Saturday 7th June – book tickets

12. Date of next meeting

TBC – announced in the header banner and as an update on the union website homepage, plus invites in calendars.

Please contact Elle (elle.chilton-knight@bristol.ac.uk) if you would like to request an item for discussion at these meetings.

Agenda

1. Welcome (AK)
2. Minutes of the previous meeting Branch meeting notes 29-01-25.docx (AK)
3. Branch Exec meeting action points (ECK) – none this time
4. Branch secretaries’ report (NS/VR)
   • Unity Trust savings account
   • Annual pay and rewards meeting report back (NS)
   • JCNC update (NS)
   • Restructures update (VR)
5. Chair’s report (AK)
   • Exec voted to support new H&S resources annual subscription and books
   • Exec voted to support the Austerity Demo resolution motion
6. Membership update
   • 16 joiners, 9 leavers in March – net increase of 7
   • SU Membership – no new joiners in March
7. SU update (TBC)
8. Agenda items for discussion:
   • Visit from the Chief Financial (Peter Vermeulen) and People (James Bigwood) Officers (AK)
   • UNISON HE funding crisis campaign (NS)
   • Workplace resources and contacts (VR & ECK)
   • National Delegate Conference (NDC) motion prioritisation (NS)
   • National Executive Council (NEC) elections (NS)
   • New branch website! (AT)
   • Outcome of recent Racism/Fascism meeting (SK)
   • Feedback on new meeting invites (ECK)
9. Member issues – open floor
   • Staff charge for Botanic Gardens (ECK on behalf of member via email)
10. Items for May Branch Exec meeting (ECK)
11. AOB
12. Date of next meeting: Still tbc, but please hold 13.00-14.00, Tuesday 20^th May (invite to follow).

Day-to-day branch activity

• 25 current open support cases (e.g. grievances, disciplinaries) across 7 stewards (volunteers from the branch who have completed training to help support members through individual issues). 
• Welcome James Spetch as our newest steward 🎉 
• We’re always on the lookout for new stewards, please let the branch know if you’re interested (unison-office@bristol.ac.uk) 
• There’s a number of department restructures currently going on. They’re all at varying points across their processes. We’re invited to each restructure meeting – so you should let us know if you’re affected: email the branch if you need any additional support. We know there’s a lot of anxiety around it, but we have come through a fair amount of them. 
• Vicky is in the branch office (1D Priory Road) on Wednesdays 1-5 if anyone wants to drop in for a chat or has any specific issues. 
• Some of the executive will be attending the UNISON Higher Education conference in Swansea (occured30th January), where there will be a full day of discussions about the sector as a whole. We’ll also vote on motions and network with other branches.  

Strike Ballot started last Tuesday (21st Jan) – ballot papers have started going out:

• If you haven’t received your ballot, call the hotline on 08000857857. We have heard this is the case for some members, so please do call to avoid disenfranchisement. They will make sure your details are correct and escalate to the balloting service to make sure you get your vote in the post. When you call up you want to keypad in the ‘any other enquiries’ line. There is a line for education, but that is for the local education consultation not for our higher education strike ballot. 
• The national recommendation is to vote yes for strike action, and the branch exec also unanimously voted to recommend voting yes for strike action. 
• We need 50% of members to turn out for the vote, and then 50% of those to vote yes for strike action for us to go out on strike. 
• We’re an active branch and have in years past reached this threshold.  
• It’s important everybody exercises their democratic voice, even if it’s to vote no – we respect there will be different opinions across the branch. 
• We need members to be putting leaflets out and posters up in their offices. We need discussions to be happening and phone banking (as much a pain in the **** it is!). We believe the majority of members will send their ballot if they just remember to do so, and all these things really help. 
• If you’d like some resources to put up, or to get involved with phone banking, please email the branch: unison-office@bristol.ac.uk 
• Phone banking is a great way of engaging members, and people do appreciate the conversation. You have a script and an easy call system to use, so it’s not as daunting as you might think. We also have a peer-to-peer texting system too if you aren’t comfortable phoning. 
• We’re also encouraging people on the WhatsApp chats to talk about voting, and share photos of themselves by their postbox. 

Wider context of the ballot

• Comes off the back of a consultation we had in the autumn, where ~85% of members voted to reject UoB’s pay offer. 
• We asked for RPI + 2%, or £2500, whichever is greater. 
• RPI inflation was 3.6% this year, so the pay claim was asking for 5.6% 
• Employer offers varied between 2.5% and 5.7%. But even for the people at the very bottom of the pay scale, getting 5.7% wouldn’t measure up to the extra £2500. 
• Basically, it didn’t meet our pay claim anywhere across the board.  
• With the cost of living crisis and inflationary crisis, our real terms pay cuts have ballooned. It’s been calculated that in the last 2-4 years, people have had a real terms pay cut of ~30%. 
• Until we start to win back some of the losses we’ve had, we should be trying to challenge and fight back.  
• 60 other HE branches are balloting too – this is a great opportunity to challenge this nationally and win together. 
• Member question: following the local (as opposed to these national) negotiations last year, UCU and I think Unison indicated that staff would be looking for further improvements to the agreed package (albeit without Unison agreement), and as I recall the University committed to keep talking.  Have there been any meetings regarding this, or a schedule agreed for further talks? 
• We did agree to have pay and reward discussions where the university would be forthcoming with their financial picture, and we could raise what we would like to see in terms of pay. 
• We haven’t actually had this meeting yet – 25th February is the next meeting on pay and reward. The branch secretarys do however also attend other regular meetings with SMT to discuss issues. 
• Without trying to put too much of a dampener on it in advance, it’s good to remember this is just a meeting that doesn’t promise anything. But it’s good to be having those conversations so we’re clear as to what we’re aiming for. 
• The executive also attend other regular meetings with SMT to raise issues. Recently Vicky (branch sec) and Alex (chair) attended a meeting between  the joint trade unions and Evelyn and a few members of senior team to talk about areas of common interest.  
• We raised the discrepancies across HR application and policy – that different workplaces have totally different approaches to how things operate. We also discussed the professional services transformation project and all of the restructures that are going on at the minute – and that we need a best practice policy. 

• Member question: The HE sector is facing financial challenges with widespread discussions of redundancies – e.g. Cardiff was in the news yesterday. Given this background, what’s the best response as a branch if the university simply say they can’t afford any uplift? 
• It’s not to do with how much money they have, it’s to do with how they prioritise spending. Compared to other HE institutions, our university is not poor, no matter how much they want to convince you that they are. They simply want to reprioritize spending in different areas rather than their staff. 
• Our role as a trade union is to remind them that staff should be their priority, 
• They say things like Temple Quarter will be an income generator. And as lovely as it is to have these fantastic buildings, the other truth is that it’s also a massive drag on the university finances because they have to keep a surplus of a certain scale to enable the debt that they’ve on boarded to pay for it.  
• The idea that pay rises directly lead to redundancies isn’t an inherent truth, it’s rather about privatisation and how they wish to spend that money. They could spend it on staff rather than spending extortionately large amounts of on things like restructures, which are happening constantly. 
• Member question: are you essentially saying that you’re aiming to use the national pay negotiations as a crowbar for local negotiations or would that be a separate? Because obviously we have to anticipate from history that the university is going to say we would love to give you more money and we could, but the sector can’t afford it. 
• This is a national dispute, that’s what the ballot is, but we can still bounce back to local. This pay deal in of itself has been delayed at other institutions, but our institution made the decision to implement – so even though the national picture might be looking ropey, there’s still the opportunity to apply pressure and get stratification ourselves. 
• Member question: Can you tell us what other higher education unions are doing? Are UCU balloting, for instance? In the past the divergent timelines between the unions have played against us because obviously it’s more effective if we all act in the same time frame. 
• Their timelines are going to potentially be very similar to our own. As if we are successful in balloting for strike action, there will be a 6 month window from early April to early September. 
• Even though it’s a national ballot, the actual days of strike action can be determined locally – so we’d be relying on our relationship with our local UCU branch in terms of any coordinated action. 

 NEC elections for National Executive Council

• https://www.unison.org.uk/nec-election-2025/
• We’re going to be having nomination meetings as a branch to nominate our choices
• Some of these will be for particular groups e.g. Black members, young members, disabled members.  
• We will be in touch with more details for these particular groups. 

Upcoming AGM (annual general meeting)

• Wednesday the 12th of March from 2:00 PM 
• We’re considering whether or not to move it a week back as a result of this being the Postgrad Open day. It’s something we may contact members about to get a feel of how impacted they will be.  
• We have notified HR of our intention to hold the AGM then, and you should be allowed time off work as a member to engage with the AGM.  
• Hybrid – in person at the Priory Road Complex. 
• Refreshments if you’re attending in person!  
• We will re-elect all our elected officials: the exec, workplace contacts and stewards. 
• It’s also an opportunity to discuss and vote on motions: things you want to see the branch be active in, and things you want to see changed.  
• There’s two important things about motions: wording and content. They must be worded in a certain way – Alex has given some example motions in the form.  
• You should have received an email from the branch with more info – including a list of positions which you can nominate yourself for.  
• There’s a two week buffer from the time which you submit an application to the time that Alex will be sending out all of the details because – we want to have the opportunity to speak to individuals in case two people have gone for the same role in case they want the job share, or if they prefer to contest it.  
• If you’d like more info on any, do not hesitate to contact the branch. 

Day of action for Palestine

These are often shared in our branch WhatsApp group, but there are specific Palestine solidarity chats too – contact Surinder Kaur if you’d like more info 

13th Feb  

Protest organised, maybe more events to come 

Branch Secretaries’ report (VS)
a. Professional Services Transformation Project 2030 causing lots of restructures across UoB.

• Process is joint trade unions informed roughly a day before staff. We give initial feedback, then Branch Secretaries or another rep attend all staff initial consultation meetings with HR. 
• Current restructures include Health, Safety and Quality assurance; Campus Digital Technologies, Marketing, Health and Life Sciences, Student Wellbeing Service and the Business School. Many more ongoing.  
• Workplace contacts in a restructure area – management should be helping you to facilitate conversations with membership. Request some time at the end of the all-staff meetings to talk to members and other staff without managers there.  You can also collect feedback through Microsoft Forms. 

ACTION: Please get in touch if you’re worried or have thoughts to share regarding a (possible) restructure in your area
 

1. Student Wellbeing restructure – letter sent to HR SMT.

• Initially negotiated a delay to implementation until January to give some more time to work out details.
  We have not heard any more, so following up alongside the other trade unions
   

1. Caseload (individuals seeking support) – currently 35 open cases,
   trained stewards, and a few people doing
   . 

ACTION: Please get in touch if you’d like to become a steward or have any questions about it.  Or if you don’t
as hugely needed. 

1. Branch organisational framework – regional rep, Chris Roche, met some exec to discuss branch organisation and what we want to achieve over the next

• work ongoing, info to be circulated as soon as it’s ready. 
• Vicky working on membership data as work location not always obvious. 

ACTION: Please check your workplace location on My UNISON
and either update there or let us know if you need a change. 

2. Stike ballot update (AK, VR, ECK) – UCEA national pay negotiations outcome came later than normal and ended in dispute. Universities could defer implementation, so we received our uplift in October. National dispute response is overseen by elected individuals called the Service Group Executive.  They called a ballot but gave branches little notice. SGE has now decided to delay this, with implications for when we can strike.

• Ballot now runs 21st January 2025 to 4th March, results 19th March.  50% branch turnout needed to strike.  If vote to strike, mandate will run 8th April to 3rd September. Branch will hold ballot/strike information meeting(s) in due course. 
• Strike Action Group restarting again for ballot and potential future strike actions.  Range of small jobs to volunteer for include making/distributing posters, setting up talks, other comms support, telephone banking, etc. 
• Sustained action and our collective strength is what has won us our achievements, but we have further to go! 

ACTION: if your address has changed, please let us know or update on My UNISON 

ACTION: Message Comms team (Elle or Mia) to be added to the Action Group Teams channel 

ACTION: help raise awareness that this is coming.  Speak to your teams, contact Alex to get a local talk, generate interest!
 

3. Maternity Rights Committee (VS)
   Setting up a committee on maternity rights, policies and payments.
   ACTION: contact Vicky if you’re interested in joining, or if you’d like to see a committe on anything else you’re passionate about. 

4. Higher Education Service Group Executive South West Female Seat (ECK) – Elle is running.
   pportunity for UoB voice in shaping decisions affecting the branch, e.g. around ballots and strike action, and pushing national UNISON to hold the government to account on the state of HE.

• All full members as of 4th November 2024 can vote. 
• Timeline: ballot open 4th February to 4th March 2025 (latest members can request a ballot paper 12noon on 20 February 2025).  Result announced 25th March. 

ACTION: Make sure your address is up to date and please vote! 

5. Palestine events this week (SK)

• Wednesday 27th March, panel discussion on  demilitiarsing education 
• Thursday 28th March, workplace day of action for Palestine. 12pm meet at Wills Building, walk down to 12.30pm College Green worker rally (TUC sponsored) 

ACTION: Contact Surinder for more information on how to get involved with actions for Palestine, including joining WhatsAp groups. 

6. Union office open hours (VK and AK) – Vicky working at 1D Prio
   13:00 to 17:00 every Wednesday, Alex 09:00 to 12:30 every Friday.

7. Branch AGM Alexander Kidd – AGM tbc first week of March. Info on running for exec positions to be circulated in December, nominations close in January. Will be (properly) catered. Invite and dietary request form coming soon.

AK has suggestions on possible updates to the branch constitution.