We have all had the opportunity to read or listen the message from Andy Schofield (new VC) to recognise the start of the new year. Unite along with UCU and UNISON have responded to the message with a statement as follows to the VC, Steve Bradley, Nicola Owen and Paul Boustead.
Joint union statement responding to VC’s start of year message
On 2 Oct 2020 the Vice-Chancellor of Lancaster University stated, in his start-of-year message, that the University have been “…working with trade unions to risk assess all that we are doing.”
The three campus unions (UCU, UNISON and Unite) cannot support this statement, especially the implication that the trade unions support the University’s current approach to institution-wide health and safety. We do not support this approach, and wish to make it clear to members and the wider staff of the University our reasons why:
- The unions raised serious concerns about the University risking failing to adhere to its legal obligation to consult with unions regarding Health & Safety measures which led to an Emergency Health & Safety Consultation Committee on 10 Jun 2020.
- Following this meeting it was agreed that a weekly meeting would be established to scrutinise risk assessments and ‘re-opening’ plans for the entire campus following their approval by the PIPR group (Pandemic Institutional Planning & Response Group).
- Whilst the unions have scrutinised a large number of risk assessments since mid-June 2020 via this meeting, we are aware that there has been a significant amount of activity in the University that hasn’t passed through this mechanism, despite our best efforts.
- With growing concerns about the safety of staff, students and the wider community, on 25 Sep 2020 UNISON, Unite and UCU issued a notice of unsatisfactory working conditions to the Vice Chancellor, as the individual with overall responsibility for Health & Safety at Lancaster University, citing two overall concerns:
- that the promise that students would receive in-person teaching this term would put staff at increased risk of infection from Covid 19, and
- the decision by PIPR to open a number of University buildings to the general public, thereby making it impossible to control the numbers of people passing through them, undermined the hard work that colleagues had put into risk assessing their work, and also increased the risk to staff of Covid-19 infection.
To date the Unions have not received a satisfactory response to the Notice, and are awaiting a follow up meeting.
We urge members of staff not to come to work on campus unless they are absolutely confident that they are being adequately protected against risk of infection from Covid-19. If you are unsure whether your particular area of campus is safe or not, please contact your union H&S officer. If you’re not in a union, please, join one.
The Lancaster University branches of UCU, UNISON and Unite