樱花动漫/861听听 23 March 2018
University and College Union
Carlow
Street, London NW1 7LH, Tel. 020 7756 2500, www.ucu.org.uk
To听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听 Branch and local association secretaries
Topic听听听听听听听听听听听听听听 Distinguished service awards 2018
Action听听听听听听听听听听听听 For information
Summary 听听听听听听 Details of members who will be given distinguished service awards in 2018听听听听听听
Contact听听听听听听听听听听 Catherine Wilkinson, Constitution and Committees
(cwilkinson@ucu.org.uk)
Dear
Colleague
Distinguished Service Awards
In
autumn 2017, a call was made for nominations for members to receive a
distinguished service award (樱花动漫/821). At its meetings in March, the NEC
endorsed two nominations, from the from the North West and South East
regional committees.听 The supporting statements provided as part of these
nominations are set out below for information.听听
Awards will be announced at the Congress dinner.
Yours
sincerely
Sally
Hunt
General
Secretary
Pauline Hall (West
Kent and Ashford College)
Nominated by South East Regional Committee
Pauline has been an activist in the south east region since the 樱花动漫
began and for many years in NATFHE before that, totalling 25 years of activism.
As Regional Treasurer and member of the Regional Executive for 15 years, a
delegate to the Kent and Medway Area Liaison Committee, and Branch Chair,
Secretary, Treasurer and Membership Secretary for North West Kent College
Branch, she has provided encouragement and guidance to new members and helped
to develop activism within the region as well as in her branch. Pauline has
been a tireless supporter of her colleagues in FE and in HE and has helped,
through her activism, to improve the working conditions in her own institutions
and throughout the country.
In supporting and representing members within her own branch, Pauline has
exemplified the meaning of solidarity. When Pauline was targeted as a union
member for redundancy by her employer she continued to offer advice and support
to her colleagues and gave her continuing support even after she had left the
institution.听 Through her own efforts she
helped in organising and recruiting and consequently helped to reinvigorate the
branch and to grow the union in her institution even in the face of threats
from management regarding her own employment.
In campaigning, Pauline has been a stalwart defender of the rights of
educators and of education. It is her dogged determination, her motions to
congress, her inspiring conviction that emboldened the union to challenge the
authority and validity of the autocratic institution that was the IfL
culminating in a massive success for the union and its members.
Pauline has embodied what it means to belong to a
union, she has influenced, encouraged and supported the activism of new union
members and she has campaigned tirelessly, always practising what she has
preached and leading by example. Her branch, her region and the union are all
better for her contributions.听听听
Paul Summerscales (Burnley College)
Nominated by Burnley College and
then North West Regional Committee
Since becoming branch secretary in 2007, Paul has built a union
organisation at Burnley College where none previously existed. The branch has
seven divisional reps, three H&S reps, an Equality rep and an Environmental
rep.听 He was a member of the NEC/FEC in
2014-15.
Membership has increased against the regional trend and the branch has
80%+ membership amongst the academic staff. Before the current recruitment
initiative, Paul expanded membership out to the student facing support staff
and was clearly ahead of the game here.
Paul is the senior negotiator for the union and under his leadership the
branch has consistently achieved pay awards some larger than the AOC
recommendation as is the case this year when a 2% pay award, consolidated and
backdated to August 1st, as are all pay awards, was agreed. Furthermore the
last two years have seen the successful negotiation of stage 2 pay awards and
the signing of Memoranda of Understanding between the union and the College
employer.
Paul has also developed branch reps so they can actively represent
members as well as taking the significant workload of member representation
himself especially with regard to formal hearings and members will testify to
his skill and expertise here. However the essence of his work here has been in
developing a proper professional relationship with the SMT in the conduct of
employment relations. This was especially difficult given there was historic
hostility towards the union on behalf of the SMT.
The development of this relationship under Paul's leadership has enabled
consultation and negotiation to take place under the normal procedures of
employment relations with the union taken as a legitimate and serious
participant. Indeed this has enabled many issues to be dealt with informally
before they become problematic and develop into cases for formal procedure.
The branch has had a proper union organisation now for some 10 years and
as such has successfully joined in national campaigns to protect pensions and
to improve pay.
Indeed in this last respect Paul has made
significant contributions at Special Sector Conference and at Congress.
Furthermore, at College, Paul regularly organises recruitment drives in
line with national campaigns and these always lead to an increase in membership
and indeed does this outside of these campaigns in line with College
recruitment of new members of staff.
For the last four years he has been Regional Chair and has achieved a
significant improvement in participation at NW regional council and as such
removed the democratic deficit where the region was for many years controlled
by a small handful of branches and average branch attendance was around 8
branches whereas now it is regularly above 15 with many branches that never
sent delegates for years now regularly represented.
The branch now has a significant number of female
reps, all of whom have been either been recruited by Paul or have come forward
because of a desire to become active owing to being inspired to become engaged
union activity because of his conduct and leadership. This includes an LGBT
member who is the branch equality rep.
He has promoted the union's equality agenda amongst the membership with
on all issues as well as gaining active participation of members in campaigns
designed to raise awareness of the importance of the equality and diversity
agenda.
Prior to working at Burnley College Paul was a
NATFHE activist at what was then MANCAT and served the union as branch chair,
co-ordinating committee secretary and then chair (when there were four separate
branches at MANCAT), H&S rep and was part of a team that negotiated the
MANCAT contract post incorporation which although now amended, did stand for
many years and represented the best example of a post incorporation contract.
Given all the above the branch believes he thoroughly deserves a distinguished service award.