Present: Des Freedman, John Wadsworth, Pamela Beevers, Ben Levitas, Sheila Turley, Rob Bannocks, Rosalyn George
Apologies: Natalie Fenton, Duncan Branley, Kay Dickinson

In attendance: Alberto Toscano

1. Motion on Campaign in Response to Home Office Regulations (passed)

AlbertoToscano received two emails staff in Sociology to upload all the attendance registers, in advance of the changes to the Home Office regulations on immigration. He also received a presentation from the Teaching and Learning committee about the implementation of the points-based immigration system. They have been asked to put all their attendance sheets online. The university has a licence for recruiting international students; one of the requirements for this licence is to comply with the Home Office regulations, and to report regularly to the Home Office or else lose the licence. There is thus an IT system to make the info available to the UKBA. UCU nationally opposes the regulations. The Student Union has already passed a motion calling on staff to not comply.

Text of motion (also available as a Word document here)

New Home Office regulations

We wish to express our opposition to the new Home Office regulations, introduced under the new points-based system for immigration to the UK, that will require lecturers to monitor international students and to report any absences from seminars, lectures and tutorials, as well as any failure to submit assessment on time. We are opposed to these regulations for the following reasons.

First, they represent a possible breach of Article 8 (the right to privacy) and Article 3 (degrading treatment) of the European Convention of Human Rights and the 1998 Human Rights Act.

Second, such regulations will harm the relationship of trust between students and lecturers that is a vital aspect of doing our jobs which, fundamentally, should be helping students to learn. The regulations, in effect, treat international students as though they are potential suspects who have come to the UK with the specific goal of abusing the immigration system. We feel that this is discriminatory as the Home Office regulations apply only to non-EU students. We also wish to point out that the existing procedures of applying for a student visa requires students to be accepted at an accredited UK institution and, as such, already address the concerns and bogus schools that apparently have motivated the new rules.

Third, the work involved in monitoring international students will add unnecessarily to our workloads, in addition to our regular teaching, administrative and pastoral duties.

Furthermore, we note the passing of a motion in 2008 by Goldsmiths Students Union encouraging staff not to comply with the new rules.

For these reasons, this meeting agrees

1. To affirm its opposition to the new Home Office regulations;

2. To request details of the specific plans the University is making with regard to the implementation of these regulations;

3. To ask members not to commence implementation of these regulations until these details are made clear to members, and the human rights and workload issues are appropriately dealt with.

Proposed: Alberto Toscano Seconded: GUCU Executive

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2. Motion on Al-Quds University Twinning Campaign (passed)

Text of motion available here as a Word document (.doc)

3. Report back from IT services meeting
The meeting was productive. We raised management style and other issues, including holidays and working out of hours. Frances (rep for IT) has agreed to meet with the line manager as necessary. We made it clear that people should not be working on call. We talked about not having a rota. We will be circulating a work/life balance survey and continue to keep an eye on the situation. At the next AGM, we will talk about the issue of ‘goodwill’ which may translate into added work requirements.

4. Report Back from Registry Restructuring

The proposals have been delayed, but there is also an issue of lack of information. Reps to table this issue at the next JNC.

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5. Motion on Privatisation (passed)

Text of motion available here as a Word document (.doc)

6. Potential Data abuse by BUPA

BUPA has contacted all staff offering private medical provision. It appears that the information was provided through the Staff Directory which is now public. We should bring this up at the next JNC asking for clarification about why the Staff Directory was made open to the public, which has allowed a number of private organisations to contact staff.

7. Committee Author Training

The offer of training on committee paper writing was noted.

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8. Pay Forum Update

Most recent pay forum meeting cancelled. Papers were promised but nothing delivered as yet. There are still red-circled staff which is are being worked through. Formal appeals are set to start soon.

Unresolved issues: progression criteria, readers, role profiles, hourly-paid staff. Progression criteria were promised by July 2008.

9. Next General Meeting: Wednesday, 11 February at 1PM.

Next Exec Meeting: Wednesday, 25 February at 1PM.

10. Academic Related Staff Annual Meeting on 11 March.

Kirsten to email ac-related staff asking for two reps.

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For an archive of older meetings, look here.

Any questions? email us at gucu-admin@gold.ac.uk.