What's on

We normally try to arrange a Branch Meeting at least once a term, including the Annual General Meeting, which takes place at the end of February or beginning of March.

Branch Meetings and other events will be advertised here as they arise.

Current and upcoming events detailed below:

AGM
Campaign to elect Dave Prentis as UNISON General Secretary
Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion: Regional Event
Report of Siamak Alimi's aid trip to Gaza
UNISON South West’s First Annual Photography Competition 2009/2010
Petition for Birmingham Colleagues

Branch events

25 February: University of Bristol UNISON AGM, 12:00-13:45, Maths Dept, University Walk.

Lunch will be provided from 12.00 pm in the foyer and the meeting will take place in Room SM1.

Please come along if you can as this is an important meeting in the face of impending changes.

23 October: Council Lobby

There was a good turn-out for the lobby of Senate on Monday of last week: up to 150 at any one time outside Senate House in support of academics and technicians in the School of Dentistry whose research team is being threatened with closure. Those going into the meeting were left in no doubt that this was a big issue that raises strong feelings. So thanks to those who were able to lend their support.

There was a follow-up lobby of Council on Friday 23rd October, and there will be a further lobby of the Redundancy Committee when it meets, probably on Thursday 19th November. The governing bodies of the University have been left in no doubt that staff are not prepared to put up with a regime of compulsory redundancies, especially when they are ill-thought-out and rushed through. Who's next?

Other events

Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion: Regional Event

UNISON South West’s First Annual Photography Competition 2009/2010

This is open to all members and any kind of photos taken in the last year involving UNISON can be submitted.

See Flyer (PDF) for more details

Petition for Birmingham Colleagues

The University of Birmingham have announced the closure this week of the Sociology department and are closing the Media, Culture and Society degree with the loss of 19 jobs. The local UNISON exec voted to back a campaign to keep the department open and will be working on this with students on the courses and UCU and UNITE.

Please sign their online petition. A (non-UNISON) website has also been set up by staff and students.

The University of Birmingham are also proposing a further £11million of recurrent cuts by 2012/13, of which £4.5million appears to be from administrative and support staff. This will be public after University council on 26 November.