Return to Campus Working is Not Safe – Why We Issued a Failure to Agree Notice to Sheffield Hallam University
Many people have reached out to the union for support and guidance on returning to work on campus. Concern is wide-spread throughout the university. Management’s decision to provide face to face teaching for all students risks causing a serious outbreak of Coronavirus on our campuses and a local public health crisis.
Colleagues are anxious and quite rightly questioning the safety of returning to campus at this time, particularly in light of the recent reports of increasing outbreaks of Covid19 in university campuses across the UK. We are concerned for the increased risk that a spike in local cases poses to our colleagues, our students, our families and for our local community. We believe that the current approach being taken by SHU management risks causing such a spike and overwhelming our already strained NHS clinics and local hospitals, and unnecessarily puts our loved ones in harm’s way. We cannot allow this to happen without seriously attempting to change management’s mind using every avenue available to us. To this end, as many of you may know, the members of UCU Hallam recently voted overwhelmingly to register a “Failure to Agree” notice with management. A letter will be sent to management to outline our concerns and request that SHU adopts a safety first approach to teaching and immediately moves all teaching online that can be delivered online. This is in line with the National and Branch policies and guidance issued from Independent SAGE, with the support of the National Union of Students.
Since the outset of this crisis the union has worked side by side with management to plan for a safe return to campus working. However, we feel they have not sufficiently discharged their duty of care to employees to provide adequate and fit for purpose risk assessments that suit current conditions. A number of factors must be addressed before the campus can be declared as “Covid Save”. We note that the current high level risk assessment published on the University’s intranet site was last updated on 27th July 2020 and do not take into account the recent increase in the number of reported positive cases across the UK. This is an extremely volatile situation with severe risks attached and much can change in two months. The severity level of the high level risk assessments must be revised and closely monitored. This in turn now forces a review of all lower level risk assessments and their control measures before face to face teaching on any scale can take place safely on campus.
Failure of leadership to provide clear instructions to work planners has resulted in extremes of practice in implementing directives in departments across the University. Some have approached Management’s directive to provide face to face teaching in a sensible manner, only mandating this where it is essential for students’ learning, and allowing the rest to be delivered online. Some areas of the University are now entirely online. Other areas however are insisting that all students must attend campus for a minimum of 4 hours per week regardless of the safety risks, pedagogical or practical necessity. We have pointed out to senior management that forcing face to face teaching universally, particularly where this will result in a much worse student experience than remote learning, will only increase the risks for everyone. Furthermore, this approach over-accentuates the possible benefits of Covid-era face to face teaching when in reality it will in many cases negatively impact student experience, while putting everyone at unnecessary risk. It would also be a better use of campus resources and provide a much safer environment if they were reserved solely for the use of delivering on campus teaching that adds to the student learning experience rather than detracts from. The current risk assessments do not go far enough to take into account the number of students and staff that will need to be present on campus with this blanket approach of everyone in!
A “Failure to Agree” notice does not mean a strike. It forces the University to publically answer the concerns we have raised regarding the safety of the campus. Similar disputes are being triggered at universities all over the UK where face to face teaching is being prioritised over safety. The next stage to this will be to trigger an official dispute. However, we truly hope that we can convince Management at SHU to reconsider their position before it comes to this.
If you’re teaching on campus and experience something that makes you feel unsafe you MUST report this immediately. Don’t forget to let us know too so we can monitor incidents across the University.
These are extraordinary circumstances that we are dealing with. It’s important to reach out to colleagues who are not in the union who may be feeling extremely vulnerable. We need to support them and encourage them to join UCU. The union IS us, working together to keep everyone safe!
For more information about the UCU national position on Covid 19 please visit http://ucu.org.uk/covid19 for information on local branch policy and Covid 19 advice please visit ucuhallam.org