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ISSUE
9, NOVEMBER 2002
A.G.M.
The
AGM was due to be held on 2 November 2002. Unfortunately, due
to the small number of branch delegates wishing to attend, a decision
was taken to postpone it.
A
new date has been set for the 2003 AGM - SATURDAY 17 MAY 2003.
Inside this newsletter you will find a personal letter to you
from the SFHEA President, David Loudon, urging individual SFHEA
members to become involved in the union's Committees, Council
and AGM.
Below
is an article by the President in the first of a regular column.
THE
PRESIDENT WRITES……..
This
column is a new feature of the newsletter which enables me to
speak to members direct.
I
am a senior lecturer at Anniesland College and have been a member
of the SFHEA for 6 years. I became Branch Secretary at the College
in April 1998; regularly attended Council Meetings on behalf of
the branch and became a member of the National Executive Committee
in 1999. In 2000 I became Vice-President and became President
in 2001. This may appear to be an extremely fast rise to stardom!
However, having become involved at branch level I wanted to keep
myself and the branch members as well informed as possible about
what was happening within the union and the sector as a whole.
This also gave me, as Branch Secretary/Negotiator, valuable information
to assist when negotiating with Management on behalf of the branch
on salaries and conditions of service as well as representing
members on grievance and disciplinary issues.
I
then joined the Executive Committee as, having witnessed the valuable
work carried out by the union on behalf of its members, I wanted
to have an input to and contribute to this work. The Executive
Committee oversees the running of the union, formulates responses
to important consultation papers and meets with Government Ministers
to put forward the union's policies as determined by members.
Being elected President of the union is a great honour but with
this also comes additional responsibilities as, along with the
other Officers, I am required to make decisions on matters of
urgency that may arise between meetings of the Executive Committee.
In
my Presidential address to last year's AGM I outlined my views
on how communication and participation within the union could
be improved. I stressed the importance of each individual SFHEA
member as it is the members who form the Council and its Committees.
The
Council: It decides the policies of the union, it gives direction
to the Executive Committee and is the employer of the Secretariat.
The
Executive Committee: It manages the union between meetings of
Council.
Branch
Officials: They represent members of their branch at Council,
communicate with the Secretariat on matters relating to their
branch and college management. They represent members jointly
or individually in negotiations on terms and conditions and disciplinary
and grievance matters.
And
finally, but most importantly:
The
Members: Their role in all of this is to participate. Not just
in the activities of the branch and supporting their branch officers,
but in active participation within the union.
We
need your active participation at branch level because, by talking
to your Branch Officials, they would be encouraged to attend Council
meetings and voice your opinion; communicate with the Secretariat
to discuss issues affecting you or your Branch.
However,
I am concerned that, despite improved communication links, the
number of members participating in the Council, Committees of
Council, National Executive Committee, AGM and at branch level
has decreased.
We
can all find reasons not to do things, including myself, but at
the end of the day you can be sure that management are attending
meetings and drawing up new weird and wonderful ideas which are
supposed to improve the provision of education, restructuring
staff and eroding our hard fought for terms and conditions in
the process. The provision to all our students is uppermost in
our minds. That is why we became lecturers and union members -
to make a difference.
I
therefore personally urge you to become actively involved in YOUR
union: The Council - the next meeting of Council is on Saturday
25 January 2003, make sure your branch is represented; the National
Executive Committee has several vacancies - please consider being
nominated to the Committee, this can be done at the January Council
Meeting ; your Branch Committee - your Branch Secretary would
appreciate the support and assistance; the AGM - the AGM had to
be postponed but a new date of Saturday 17 May 2003 has been set,
please do your best to attend.
If
you require any further information or wish to discuss any of
the foregoing please do not hesitate to contact either the Secretariat
direct on 0141-221-0118 or myself on 0141-357-6027.
DAVID
LOUDON
PRESIDENT
F.E. SECTOR
Members
are only too well aware of the problems facing the further education
sector in Scotland. It is clear that there are also problems in
the sector in England and Wales.
Strike
action was taken in May over the salary increase offer of 1.5%.
This action led to a slight increase in the offer to 2.3%. 60,000
lecturers and support staff took part in a one-day strike on 5
November after rejecting the 2.3% rise offered by the Association
of Colleges. Union members have stated that the rise is "insulting"
but the Association of Colleges, which is the national negotiating
body for more than 300 colleges, says colleges cannot afford to
better the offer.
We
believe in Scotland that we have major problems with regard to
salaries because of the breakdown of national negotiations and
the introduction of local bargaining. There is no doubt that it
is the advent of local negotiations which has led to the huge
differential in salaries of lecturers employed in different colleges.
We have long campaigned for a return to national bargaining and
to some form of direct control but when you look at the situation
in England and Wales, where they have a national negotiating body,
you wonder whether a return to national bargaining would resolve
all the problems. Perhaps we require this together with a significant
change in funding and a major change of thinking towards the forgotten
"cinderella" sector of education.
Lecturers
in England and Wales are aggrieved that their salary has fallen
behind school teachers. The average starting salary for a lecturer
is £13,745 rising to £25,000 at the top of the scale.
Teachers, following a 3.5% pay rise in April, can start at a salary
of £17,628 and most are earning £25,746. It is claimed
that lecturers are demoralised and are leaving the sector to earn
a proper living wage elsewhere. Does all of this sound familiar?
Lecturers taking part in this industrial action are doing so out
of desperation and they hope that the action will draw attention
to part of the education sector which they feel is both neglected
and underfunded.
This
deterioration in industrial relations is also apparent in Scotland.
The EIS took part in a well-publicised march on 2 November, attended
by 1,000 union members, over the sacking of a lecturer from Central
College. The lecturer claims he was sacked because he is a trade
union activist. The march was to draw attention to the sacking
and what the EIS describes as an anti-union agenda in further
education. College principals insist there is no union-bashing
policy whilst admitting that union and management relations are
volatile. They state that the reasons for this are a combination
of funding problems and associated staff cuts.
Tom
Kelly of the ASC stated that "if we had funding levels at
a more sustainable level then I am sure that relations within
the individual colleges would be much less volatile than they
are at the moment."
If unions and management are agreed that the main problem is funding
isn't it time the two combined to campaign for improved funding?
If our AGM had taken place perhaps we could have suggested this
to Mr Kelly direct as he was to be our guest speaker.
For
any campaign to be successful it requires maximum participation
by as many people as possible to prove that there is strong feeling
and conviction.
F.E.
NEWS ROUND-UP
It
has been announced that further education colleges last year used
£431M of public funding from the Scottish Further Education
Funding Council (SFEFC), an increase of 13%, to deliver more courses
to more students in more flexible ways and reaching more students
than ever before from socially-excluded areas. The SFEFC state
that students have benefited from better-qualified lecturers,
more widespread and smarter use of information technology and
more improvements to buildings and facilities.
The
SFEFC's Annual Report and Accounts for 2001-2002 shows that the
SFEFC funding to colleges included:-
£10.8M
to develop information communications technology;
£25.3M
to upgrade and develop college buildings;
£57.5M
for student support;
£12.8M
for strategic measures to help colleges meet future challenges.
Has
your College benefited from this funding?
Telford
College is to receive assistance from the SFEFC to take forward
a £60M relocation from its current four sites in North Edinburgh
to a new campus in the Waterfront Development in Granton, Edinburgh.
The
funding package comprises of £19M phased across the construction
period of the project (envisaged to be academic years 2002-03
to 2005-06) and £500K loan support each year for four years
after the end of the construction period.
AGM
2003 - DEADLINE DATES
As
announced earlier in the newsletter, the 2003 AGM will be held
on Saturday 17 May 2003.
Notices,
motion and nomination forms and delegate pro-formas will shortly
be sent to Branch Secretaries with a request that they hold branch
meetings in time to meet the following deadline dates.
Please
do your best to attend the meetings and contribute to your AGM.
8
MARCH 2003 - Receipt of motions to alter the Constitution
22
MARCH 2003 - Nominations for the National Executive Committee;
nominations for the posts of Vice-President and Finance Convener;
Nominations for the Conveners of the Salaries and Conditions of
Service Committee, Educational and Current Issues Committee, University
and C.I. Section Management Committee.
29
MARCH 2003 - Delegate pro-formas. It is essential to receive these
to ensure that we can cater for delegates.
5
APRIL 2003 - Amendments to motions to alter the Constitution,
Policy Motions.
The
current vacancies on the National Executive Committee can be filled
at the Council Meeting to be held on Saturday 25 January 2003.
You
will have read in the President's column earlier in the newsletter
the type of work carried out by this Committee. The Committee
meets on a monthly basis, usually on the last Friday of the month.
If
you wish any further information please do not hesitate to contact
Lyn McClintock, Deputy General Secretary, direct on 0141-221-0118.
The
agenda of the Council Meeting in January will contain an item
regarding the structure of the union.
Your
input and thoughts would be very helpful and we hope to see you
on 25 January at Glasgow Caledonian University.
Papers
for the meeting will be distributed during the week beginning
Monday 13 January 2003.
BRANCH
VISITS
As
mentioned elsewhere in the newsletter there is concern that members
are not participating in their union's activities.
We
will shortly be writing to Branch Secretaries advising that the
General Secretary and Deputy General Secretary wish to meet members
in order to answer any queries they may have about the union or
a workplace concern.
It
would be helpful if, when your Branch Secretary advises of the
date and venue, you would come along and meet us. We believe that
this would be beneficial to yourself, your union and your full-time
officials.
If
you are receiving this newsletter direct then your branch does
not currently have a branch secretary. We will be writing to you
soon to arrange a meeting in your College of all SFHEA members.
SFHEA
DIARY/ORGANISERS
We
hope that, as requested, members have retained their diary/organiser!
We
had hoped to distribute the diary inserts for your organiser in
October but, unfortunately, there has been a delay in production.
We
will forward the inserts to the Branch Secretaries as soon as
we receive them from Collins.
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