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Day: 11 March 2016

University to ‘cut catering staff and lower wages’

Written by Jennifer Sterne on . Posted in News.

An email leaked to The Mancunion appears to reveal how University of Manchester Conferences Limited (UMC) plans to make 43 staff redundant and lower wages paid to other staff.

This comes after last month’s implementation by UMC of the living wage for all staff of all ages, following years of campaigning by staff and students.

UMC is a private, wholly-owned subsidiary company of the university that provides catering services across campus and in the University’s Halls of Residence. UMC runs the Chancellors Hotel, The Chancellors Collection, FoodOnCampus, FoodInResidence, and BarsInResidence on behalf of the University.

In the leaked email received by The Mancunion, it was claimed that 60 out of UMC’s 283 staff have been told that their jobs are at risk. The email goes on to say that if less than 43 of these 60 do not accept voluntary severance, then UMC have announced that they plan to go ahead with compulsory redundancies.

Alongside this, UMC are allegedly planning to impose inferior contracts on the remaining staff, cutting salaries by up to a third.

Staff and students campaigned for several years for the living wage to be implemented across UMC and, as of the 1st of February 2016, it was announced that all UMC staff would be paid at least the living wage as set by the Living Wage Foundation, which currently stands at £8.25.

The company had said that the pay increase was just one of their planned actions within catering services, aiming to develop and improve “their financial performance and service quality.”

The new rate is £1.05 per hour more than the government’s National Living Wage, which comes into force in April. The National Living Wage is also only to be paid to people over the age of 25, whereas UMC announced they planned to pay £8.25 regardless of the age of their staff.

At the time of this announcement the University of Manchester’s Students’ Union Living Wage Campaign told The Mancunion that it was “a massive win for fair pay in the work place here at the University of Manchester, as over 300 members of staff will benefit from the change.”

According to our source, the company turned a loss of £114,554 in 2013/14 into a profit of £164,362 in 2014/15. The source suggested that this was why the company decided to join the student and trade union campaign for the living wage.

These claims of redundancies within UMC comes on the back of redundancies and further threats of redundancies to 38 employees and 68 IT staff last year, alongside 28 other staff this year.

Our source expressed concern with the direction the university is taking, especially expressing concern over the treatment of lower paid staff in contrast with those who earn the most at the university.

The Mancunion recently reported that the 103 staff are paid over £100,000 which, according to data obtained by the Taxpayers Alliance, this stands at almost one per cent of the University’s total employees.

The University of Manchester had the 23rd highest number of staff paid above £100,000 in the country.

These concerns are all to be raised with senior management at the university within the coming days. There will also be a meeting organised by the University of Manchester’s Students’ Union to begin a campaign against these job losses on Tuesday the 15th of March at 5.30pm in Room 4 of the Students’ Union.

A University of Manchester spokesperson has confirmed these claims and told The Mancunion that “following a review of catering services the University has opened a voluntary severance scheme for FoodOnCampus and FoodInResidence staff. Consultations have been arranged and support and advice is being made available to all affected staff”.

MA Creative Writing Anthology teaser

Written by Shaun Carter on . Posted in Uncategorised.

Manchester is a City of creative talent. You’re thinking of Morrissey, of Steve Coogan, and of the Gallagher brothers. You might also be thinking of Michelle Keegan, and Max from the Wanted. Intimidating, I know. Well, did you know that the University of Manchester teaches an MA in Creative Writing?

In between the absinthe and existential crises, the class of 2016 are putting together an Anthology of their work. Late in the summer, there will be a collection of extracts from all of these upcoming poets and fiction writers, bound together in a lovely print book with cover art and author photographs; what’s more, the anthology will be offered to a readership of agents, ever seeking new talent.

On September 8th, there will also be a launch night. More details will follow soon, but it will be amazing.

Who knows, you might get to read the work of the next E.L. James, or one day, with luck and hard work, Katie Price? Don’t miss it.

British Cycling End World Championships In Style

Written by Alex Whitcomb on . Posted in Sport.

East London’s Lee Valley Velodrome, the venue of Team GB’s record medal haul in 2012, saw Britain take an impressive medal count for the first time since Olympic triumph four years ago. Five golds, one silver, and three bronze were enough to see the British team placed above rivals Germany, Australia and Russia respectively. Despite this, the road to Rio is not paved in the same colour as the medals that once again hang around Bradley Wiggins and Mark Cavendish’s necks. The championships showed some of GB’s weaknesses that will have to be improved upon if they are to achieve their aim of bettering their performance in London.

Good showings by both men’s and women’s endurance were the backbone of the strong performance. The near miss by GB to win the men’s team pursuit on the second day showed that they are in good form and seem to be peaking at the right time in the Olympic cycle.

One significant milestone was Jon Dibben’s points race gold. Not only was it Dibben’s first World Title—thoroughly deserved after a consistently successful 2015/16—but it was also the first gold medal won by a british man at the World Championships since 2013. When he spoke to The Mancunion in October last year, GB endurance coach Chris Newton was adamant in his belief that Britain’s men would finally end their gold medal drought before the Olympics. That duck having now been broken appears to have vindicated that confidence and will come as a tremendous relief to the management team.

Part of the revitalisation in the success of the men’s team is surely down to Team Wiggins. The existence of a special squad, spearheaded up by Wiggo himself, devoted to the men’s endurance team the whole year round will have eased commercial pressures on all the riders to do unnecessary road racing during the rest of the year. All four of the silver medal winning pursuit team are Wiggins riders, along with points winner Dibben and Individual Pursuit bronze medallist Andy Tennant.

Laura Trott once again showed her class as the pre-eminent female endurance track rider, claiming two golds in the scratch race and omnium. She has been the world number one for some time and is fast becoming Britain’s only safe bet for glory in Rio, by consistency being at the top of the sport in all four years of this Olympic cycle. She will be the favourite for the Omnium in the summer and a key part of the pursuit team, that will be raced with four riders over four kilometres at the Olympics for the first time, matching it with the men’s event.

Jason Kenny also made his mark by taking the individual sprint title—his first gold medal since Keirin glory in 2013. After a poor recent few years, Kenny appears to have peaked at the right time, especially with younger British sprinters like Lewis Oliva and Matt Rotherham having strong seasons breathing down his neck.

However, no matter how Britain fared at other events at these Championships, Mark Cavendish’s performance in the Omnium was always going to come under the most scrutiny. The rider L’Équipe named as the greatest sprinter in the history of the Tour de France has famously never won a medal at the Olympic Games, being the only empty-handed member of the track team in Beijing. He managed sixth place in the omnium and gold with Wiggins in the Madison on his return to the World Championships, but will have to improve on that over the spring. This will be especially difficult, since most of the international track events take place between September and March, meaning that there will be precious few opportunities to make any gains.

Under these circumstances, it is now highly likely that they will opt for points race victor Dibben, seeing as he had been the first choice for the omnium until Cavendish declared his intention to compete in the event. Cavendish’s road commitments also complicate things somewhat, with potential dispute between his employers on the road (Team Dimension Data) considering him for all three weeks of le Tour and GB director Shane Sutton insisting that he leave at least a week early to prepare for the Olympics.

What will also be the major disappointment of the Championships is the failure of Jess Varnish and Katy Marchant to qualify for the Olympics in the team sprint. They finished fifth overall, seemingly enough to see them through but were only two places ahead of France, and needed to be three ahead to gain the final European place at Rio. Varnish, disappointed to have missed out by one place and angry at the GB management for not prioritising their qualification, told BBC Sport “How many more times can I keep putting my life on hold, making these choices for my career, if it’s not going to pay off, through no fault of our own?”.

It will also be disappointing that GB failed to hit the mark in as many Olympic events. Three of the five golds came in events that are no longer in the Olympic programme (points race, scratch race, and Madison). While winning them shows good form, they will really have to finely hone the events that they will be competing in at the Olympics.

This year’s World Championships have shown that Great Britain are still a force to be reckoned with in track cycling. The usual suspects of Trott, Wiggins, and Kenny are now back to their best, with new talent like Dibben and Tennant looking to make waves on their Olympic débuts. However, as has been the case for the last four years, domination is by no means assured and we might well be in for a shock if we expect GB to surpass their 2012 haul of seven gold medals, especially since there are now only nine up for grabs to start with. Britain have performed above expectations compared to how they have been over the last four years. Let’s hope this means they can translate this into more Olympic glory.

 

University of Westminster denies student exam deferral due to lack of “proof” of father’s death

Written by Simon Taylor on . Posted in News.

A University of Westminster biochemistry student was denied an exam deferral after not being able to prove her father’s death. Saima Haq took to twitter to vent her frustrations: “I explained in my statement that there is absolutely no way for me to provide any original documents at this time, since they are being processed in the country of his death, but I have given photocopies of all the evidence that my uncle has been emailing me.” Her tweet has since been retweeted over 7,000 times, receiving widespread support and gaining the attention of the press.

In an interview with the Standard, Haq stated: “In a country like Tanzania, it is not a simple process to obtained typed up documents translated into English.” She added that “the medical report I gave was handwritten, which the uni [sic] have said does not have a clear medical opinion, even though it has been stamped by the hospital.”

Haq’s course uses “personal tutors”, whom she claims has been ignoring her emails in the two weeks since her father’s death. Describing the whole institution she said she has been “amazed at how unprofessional and unsupportive” they have been throughout the process.

The University of Westminster responded, tweeting Miss Haq saying they were “very sorry to hear about your loss” and promised to look into her case. A university spokesperson has since emailed the Independent expressing their sadness for Miss Haq’s loss. They added, “However, we have clear and robust procedures for students submitting exam deferral requests, which must be substantiated by original, independent documentary evidence.”

In a later tweet, Saima Haq said she had received support from others in similar situations and claimed that a fellow student had been kicked out of her university due to spending a month in hospital because “in their view she should have handed in her mitigating circumstances claim before going in.”

Similar stories were not hard to find at the University of Manchester. Lexi Bickel, a second year student, found out from her mother that her grandmother had terminal cancer halfway through the first semester of this year. Having told her tutor, who she describes as “very supportive”, Miss Bickel found the process of being given approval for mitigating circumstances “complicated.”

“They required proof that any of this actually happened—they suggested a letter from a medical professional […] my mum had to independently contact my grandmother’s consultant and was charged a fee to be given an official letter”. In January, Lexi received news of her Grandmother’s passing. She told The Mancunion: “We had to call the mitigating circumstances committee in case it affected their decision, something that we shouldn’t have had to worry about over such an emotional time.”

I still came back to university a few days later to complete my exams, which I found very difficult to do. I didn’t receive any extra support over this time, not even a check-up email, which I thought was poor—it would have taken 5 minutes to do and made me feel a lot less isolated.”

She also described the process as “stressful and felt horribly clinical and detached.”

“I know of several other people who have had similar problems or have even had their circumstances denied because the proof wasn’t sufficient—I understand that there needs to be some kind of evidence provided, but the current system seems heartless and confusing.”

Lexi is certainly not alone, a second year biology student explained the struggles they went through applying for mitigation: “I have depression and anxiety issues, and have had them before I came to university. In first year I just managed to complete all of the work, but in second year I’ve struggled.”

I have recently been trying to apply for interruption, so that I restart second year this September, but the faculty is telling me that because I have registered attendance from December 2015 that I can only come back and resit my January exams [which I didn’t take], and start again in university in early 2017.”

The student also revealed that their “mitigating circumstances were denied without any follow up emails asking for further proof; I am in the process of registering for Depression Anxiety Stress Scales (DASS)”.

They added: “It’s been about 3 weeks since my first meeting with DASS and I’m still not officially registered, due to a combination of incompetence at the GP and my illness taking away productive days”.

They claim that they were not informed of the importance of registering with the disability support until after they applied for mitigation. “The University of Manchester’s mitigation [or] special circumstance protocol is archaic and potentially very damaging to students like myself. They do not seem to consider case-by-case factors and do not seem to be well prepared in helping people with mental illness, and left me to do everything by myself even when I told them that I would prefer help [and] guidance”

A University of Manchester spokesperson responding to these claims said: “The University is unable to comment on individual cases, however the mitigating circumstances process is designed to be as thoughtful and sympathetic as possible to the students who apply. The University makes a simplified guide to this process available to all students online and also signposts access to counselling and disability services where needed. Like other universities we do require evidence that requests are genuine, though we seek to be as understanding as possible when asking for it.”