Campaign against heavy workloads


College and university lecturers’ union UCU has launched a new workload campaign under the slogan, It’s your time, let’s get it back. It says staff in higher and further education work on average more than two days unpaid each week and that workload is “unmanageable and unsustainable for most staff”.


The initiative follows a year-long pilot linking health and safety with campaigning and organising. The appointment of UCU workload reps is fundamental to making it a success. These are safety reps appointed under the Safety Representatives and Safety Committees Regulations 1977, backed up by powerful statutory functions, but with a sole focus on workload and work-related stress issues in their department. 


A key aim of the campaign is to secure agreements with employers to implement the HSE stress management standards approach to managing work-related stress, rather than the “employee wellbeing and resilience” approach many employers take.