What We’ve Won
These are not gifts from management. They are the result of organised workers demanding better — and refusing to back down.
The following documents our wins across Pay, Childcare, Redeployment, and Casework — gains achieved through collective organising, sustained branch pressure, and strike action.
This is the trajectory of London Weighting Allowance negotiations at KCL.
Incremental gains, each won through branch pressure and industrial action, establish the baseline for the current claim.
Childcare
Add wins here.
Redeployment
Add wins here.
Protecting Staff from Moving Goalposts on Probation
UCU caseworkers identified a pattern of staff being assessed against probation criteria that differed from those they were given when they started their roles. We raised this at the Joint Negotiating Committee, where management confirmed that confirmation in post must be based solely on the criteria staff were informed of at the outset. We have since continued to support affected members case-by-case through HR, ensuring this principle is applied in practice.
Bullying
We had a case where RAs accused a PI of bullying. Different caseworkers were supporting all of the people involved, including the PI, because they were all UCU members. It was a very difficult case, but one of the RAs reported that even though her job came to an end a few months early because the whole project had to be shut down, she felt it was well worth it because she believed the college had been pushed to face the situation and deal with it. In other words, she had a sense of justice having been achieved.
Bullying and EDI
An RA in a science lab was bullied horribly within days of taking up the post. She found out because the email that her LM had circulated to everyone else was shared with her by an outraged colleague. Even HR were shocked. But, importantly, our member kept pushing because she was concerned this could easily happen again. So, the outcome she was requesting was not simply an apology but an undertaking by the faculty that in future all PIs and LMs on research projects would get EDI training — she was the only person of colour on the project — and also anti-bullying and harassment training. She persisted long after her contract at KCL ran out, and won.
Maternity leave
Female member of faculty in a heavily male-dominated school found herself negatively impacted by a combination of maternity leave and a change in rules around research leave — she delayed her RL, and while she was on maternity leave, the faculty halved the length of the RLs for everyone. She argued she should get the old length, but they denied it, even though HR advised them the law meant she should not be detrimentally affected by her mat leave. She had to complain and complain, and get most of the way to the ET, but she won in the end.
Maternity leave in a HPL contract
The case of the person convening multiple modules on HPL contracts, adding up to more than a full-time regular job. She was shocked to discover her “worker” (rather than “employee” status) meant she was not entitled to mat leave. We did manage to get her mat leave. Will she get at least an FTC when she comes back? Not sure yet.