Justice denied? Petition to Provost to hear grievances - what you said + update

At the end of June we circulated a petition to the Provost to demand a commitment that staff complaints against UCL ('grievances') would be heard. Grievances may be directed against an individual or be a complaint about a contract. 

We pointed out that the right to a grievance hearing (not just an investigation, which tend to 'fob off' complaints) is a basic requirement in UK law. We are seeing a number of cases where UCL HR refused to progress a grievance to a hearing, including one - particularly disturbingly - where a senior management team (SMT) member was a respondent. 

One of the points of the petition was to ask colleagues whether they had witnessed similar behaviour themselves.

We have had a concerning number of responses about ongoing cases, in which staff have confirmed that this practice appears to be going on. Since many of these concern ongoing confidential matters or staff have asked us to keep comments confidential, we cannot relay these to you. But your Executive Committee did consider it appropriate for you to see some of the anonymous comments we have received where members agreed their comments could be made public. We have attached these without comment from us at the Appendix below.

Human Resources has told UCU that they would like to 'renegotiate' the UCL staff grievance procedure. We have made it clear that we consider the removal of an automatic right to a hearing to be non-negotiable. 

We would strongly encourage you to read the Grievance petition and the associated background, sign it, and forward to colleagues in UCL. 

Sign the Petition!

Appendix - non-confidential comments on the grievance petition 

• ““Please pursue this matter as I was denied my right to a grievance hearing.”

• ““Contravenes ACAS Code of Practice on Grievance and Disciplinary Procedures”

• ““It is very problematic that UCL's SMT attempts to bury or control grievances against its own members. This is a corruption of power at the highest level.”

• ““This behaviour is consistent with other recent practices which are contrary to good governance and UCL and respect to its scholarly mission. Outrageous.”

• ““This is outrageous and sadly symptomatic of UCL's recent approach to industrial relations.”

• ““SMT members cannot be exempt from Grievance procedures.”

• ““It’s quite disturbing that in the year 2019 the practises of bullying and harassment are so widespread at an institute such a UCL. The official line is that this type of behaviour will not be tolerated and yet it is ignored if inconvenient to SMT, several of whom in my personal experience are guilty of both themselves. There is a shocking level of corruption at this institution, little recourse for academic staff grievances and zero support from HR who seem to exist simply to protect UCL.”