It’s over alleged plans to "fire-and-rehire" staff.
They would be rehired on new contracts and receive a net total of 8 fewer holiday days.
Statement in full from Richmond upon Thames College.
Richmond upon Thames College (RuTC) are hugely disappointed
to see strike action go ahead at this time, when students across the country
have already experienced a large amount of disruption due to the pandemic.
The College needs to have a new calendar in place for the new academic year to
ensure that there is more time for teachers to have INSET days outside the
teaching timetable to develop their practice, meet as teams and focus on the
individual needs of the students and plan and organise their work. RuTC is
currently a significant outlier within the FE sector, with the current very
high levels of annual leave entitlement preventing us from being able to
allocate specific non-teaching days for staff training, development,
collaboration and support for students.
The dispute with University and Colleges Union (UCU) has arisen over the
proposal to reduce the current 64 days per year of annual leave (including Bank
Holidays and efficiency days) to a level in line with other Further Education
(FE) colleges. The consultation and negotiation period (further extended by the
College) has come to a close and the proposal is a net loss of 8 days of annual
leave with full financial compensation, which equates to teaching
staff having a total of 56 days of leave (including Bank
Holidays and an increased number of efficiency days).
The College informed UCU on 22nd February 2022 that there would be proposals to
change the terms and conditions of the teaching staff contract to see if
agreement could be reached and individuals could voluntarily move to the
revised contract. It was agreed that we would move to formal consultation on
8th March 2022. The 45-day formal consultation period was due to end on 22nd
April 2022 and the College extended the timeline by a further 18 days until
10th May 2022 in the hope of reaching collective agreement. Consultation came
to an end on that day when the UCU response made it clear that negotiations
could go no further.
The College has demonstrated a consistent and genuine desire to negotiate on
the overall package of benefits including pay and levels of annual leave and
has confirmed the offer of 100% financial compensation (consolidated) for the
net reduction in annual leave. This offer financially compensates and
recognises the work that teaching staff regularly carry out during holiday
times. In addition, it enables staff to take time back on designated
non-teaching days in recognition of additional work carried out during term
time.
UCU represent fewer than 50% of the College’s teaching staff, the ballot was
not unanimously in favour of strike action and the College have been made aware
that many of our teachers are equally disappointed in the union’s decision to
strike. There have been no dismissal letters sent to date, as the College is in
discussions with individual members of teaching staff, of whom a significant
number are accepting the new contract terms on a voluntary basis.
The College notes the concerns raised by UCU around the tabling of the final
option to dismiss and re-engage but is resolute that this is a ‘worst case
scenario’ only to be pursued in the event that it is unable to reach an agreed
compromise position with the unions. This is a standard element of the contract
re-negotiation process, where, in the event that no agreement can be reached,
the old contract is terminated and the same staff are re-engaged on the new
contract. The College remained committed to reaching a collective agreement
without having to implement the process set out in the Section 188 notice and
it remained the College’s strong and stated preference to reach a negotiated
position that would avoid the necessity of implementing this process. The new
terms and conditions will then be in line with other Colleges in our sector.
It is disappointing that UCU representatives from the very start of the
consultation chose to focus their attention so heavily on this element of the
process, at the expense of engaging in meaningful negotiation, as we believe
that this dispute could have been resolved without this disruption to our
students’ learning and support experience during this extremely important
formal examination and assessment period.
The College will be doing everything we can to minimise disruption to our
students’ ongoing teaching, learning and assessment. The impact of strike
action is likely to vary for different students, depending on the Union
membership within different programmes; some students may notice little
disruption, others may experience more. We are investigating a range of options
to enable any lost learning to be recovered, wherever possible. The strike
action will not impact on the operation of formal exams that will be taking
place at RuTC during the week of the strike.