- Conference
- 2018 Higher Education Service Group Conference
- Date
- 20 September 2017
- Decision
- Carried
Conference believes that the biggest asset a University has is its staff – all of its staff. It is important that the University invests in this resource as simply put; without its staff there would be no University.
Furthermore, Conference fully believes that the quality of the student experience is strongly linked not just to the teaching, but the positive input that all Professional and Support staff provide. As such, Conference notes with extreme concern that Professional and Support staff are often treated as second-class workers who are deemed inferior to their academic colleagues. Too often, Professional and Support staff have substantially poorer terms and conditions and less recognition for their work than academic colleagues. During local consultations, it is not uncommon for the voices of the Professional and Support staff to be ignored while their academic colleagues are given platforms from which to influence the direction of the consultation.
Conference instructs the Higher Education Service Group Executive to:
1)Work with the regional HE committees to investigate the differences in treatment between the different groups of workers within Universities.
2)Work with the NUS to encourage them to talk about the whole University community and not just academics when running future campaigns.
3)Run a campaign emphasising the essential role that support staff play and the added value they bring to students and universities as a whole.
4)Produce associated advice and organising materials to help negotiate, campaign and recruit around these issues.
5)Work with Learning and Organising Services (LAOS) to develop training materials that could be run at a regional and branch level which are designed to support members in responding to formal University consultation exercises.