A press release from Keele UCU:

The lecturers’ union UCU is calling for a boycott of Keele University as part of the campaign against management’s attacks on staff.

Greylisting of Keele University to begin Friday 13 June.

Greylisting is the ultimate sanction available to UCU members and is only ever used where a university or college refuses to engage in meaningful negotiations with a branch or local association.

We are now asking colleagues in UCU, other trade unions, labour movement organisations and the international academic community to support our members in any way possible to bring management back to the table.

The term greylisting specifically means a voluntary boycott of academic and other university activities where appropriate at Keele.

Arising from the university’s attempts to make 38 academic staff compulsorily redundant without meaningful negotiations and now management’s threats to deduct 25% of salaries a day from those taking part in ongoing lawful industrial action Keele members are seeking the following from management:

– Engage in meaningful negotiations with the branch and regional officials
– Remove the threat of pay deductions relating to the ongoing ASOS
– Commence the engagement of academic managers with teaching groups in discussion about future teaching programmes
– Agree an acceptable process for voluntary severance – including an extension to the time period of the current scheme.

Colleagues are asked to show their support for Keele UCU in particular in the following ways with effect from Friday 13 June, 2008:

– Non-attendance, speaking at or organising academic or other conferences at Keele
– Do not apply for jobs at Keele
– Do not give lectures at Keele
– Do not accept positions as visiting professors or researchers at Keele
– Do not write for any academic journal which is edited from Keele
– Do not take up new contracts as external examiners for taught courses.

When you decide to support Keele UCU as above, make sure you tell management that you are participating in the greylisting and notify campaigns@ucu.org.uk

If you are currently or soon to be involved in any activity as above on or after 13 June please contact UCU Campaigns Team at campaigns@ucu.org.uk and we will provide guidance on how to support colleagues.

We need your help, urgently, to mobilise members and others to support the boycott if the university refuses to budge. Please forward this email to all members within your local association/branch, and encourage them to forward to others both in and outside the university. Every member is affected, every member must take part. Our ability to defend and advance our pay and conditions across further and higher education is dependent on our willingness to defend our colleagues.

Here are some things you can do right now to get the campaign off to a flying start:

1. Sign the petition calling on managers to stop the cuts and negotiate:
https://www.ucu.org.uk/index.cfm?articleid=3015

2. Write to Times Higher Education (THES) letters@tsleducation.com and the Guardian letters@guardian.co.uk outlining your support for the academic boycott at Keele and calling on management to negotiate with the local association officers.

3. Show solidarity now. Send an individual message of support to UCU members at Keele by emailing them to campaigns@ucu.org.uk

4. Go straight to the top! E-mail Professor Janet Finch, the Vice Chancellor at Keele to tell her that you will be supporting the academic boycott and asking her to begin negotiations immediately. E-mails should be polite, and to the point and should be sent to: j.v.finch@vco.keele.ac.uk and copied to Justine Stephens at jstephens@ucu.org.uk. Please also forward any replies to Justine at jstephens@ucu.org.uk

5. Raise awareness! Pass this email on to all your members, write an article for your university newsletter, raise the issue at your local union branch and get your branch or LA to write to the Vice Chancellor, outlining your support for the boycott. If you would like a speaker on the dispute for a meeting, email Justine Stephens at jstephens@ucu.org.uk