We have received a copy of the template/guidelines used for complaint letters sent by member complainants to USS Ltd regarding underpayments. These letters were largely sent to USS in the first quarter of 2017, and some complainants cced their local MP. What is unusual is that USS CEO Bill Galvin himself responded to this letter, a link to which is here.
Another USS document, Oxford is running a consultation on the changes to the UK academic pensions. It seems that the outcome of the consultation about the contributions paid to the USS pension scheme will be sent to the USS trustees.
We have a release of documents related to the strike by UK academics over pensions, and the on going negotiations between the UCU, UUK, and USS. There are three documents in the release:
We have an interesting combination of release and freedom of information request. We were directed to a recent FOI request that was made to the University of York (in the UK) asking for details of any policies that they might have regards the registering of academic visitors to the University. For the purpose of visa monitoring. The result of the FOI request can be viewed here, marked by those making the request as "partially successful".
In addition to the USS accounts we now also have Actuarial Valuations from 1999 to 2008. There are later years of these on the USS website, but not easily found.
USS has started removing old accounts reports from their site so we were asked to post the old ones up.
Attached are majority of the accounts from 2010.
USS has started removing old accounts reports from their site so we were asked to post the old ones up.
Attached are majority of the accounts from the 2000s.
Last week saw what can only be described as a rather chaotic UCU Congress (University and College Union). We are no experts on UK Unions, however one union blocking another union's members voting (or even discussing) a tabled motion seems undemocratic. The motions were in part to discuss a no confidence vote in the UCU General Sec, who happens to be a member of Unite. Since this is academic's trying to debate whether or not their union is serving their best interests, it's in our arena.
Republished under Creative Commons licence, perhaps more as the authors intended. We will post a separate response from Exeter should they ask.
Here at AFW we are are interested in social media policies and how they are being used by Universities. Or perhaps miss-used. If you have evidence that these policies are being used to infringe on academic freedom of either staff or students, and would like to share, get in touch!
Some of the policies (some PDFs attached below):
