In order to ensure that Senior Management hear what you have to say, we ask that you write to the following individuals on behalf of your lecturers demanding a meaningful resolution to the strike action:
- Vice-Chancellor Prof. Jean-Noel Ezengeard (jn.ezingeard@roehampton.ac.uk)
- Provost and Deputy Vice-Chancellor Prof. Anna Gough-Yates (anna.gough-Yates@roehampton.ac.uk)
- Chief Operating Officer Tom Rowson (tom.rowson@roehampton.ac.uk)
- Director of HR Andy Lamb (andy.lamb@roehampton.ac.uk)
You may want to express yourself as you see fit; your voice is a powerful one, and your lecturers always support you in using it. However, you may also wish to use the below template (click here to download it). You can adapt this as you see fit. Thank you!
Template letter:
“FAO
Dear Vice-Chancellor Prof. Jean-Noel Ezingeard;
Provost and Deputy Vice-Chancellor Prof. Anna Gough-Yates;
Chief Operating Officer Tom Rowson;
Director of HR Andy Lamb
I am writing to express how appalled I am at Senior Management’s disdainful treatment of our lecturers and teaching staff, and how the issues over which staff took industrial action in 2019 have still not been resolved by you.
- Can you explain to me very clearly why it is my lecturers’ workloads are so unmanageable that many staff members are forced to take sick leave to recover from the stress and overload?
- Can you explain to me how exactly you are going to engage with staff meaningfully about an appropriate overhaul of the workload that takes into account the real-time hours required for their tasks in a sustainable, healthy, and appropriate way?
- Can you explain to me why you take your staff’s health and wellbeing less seriously than the students’? We are the students, but we depend on our lecturers in order to get the best from our education. By mistreating our lecturers, you are mistreating our education – and, by extension, us.
- Can you explain to me why, in 2021, women and POC are, on the whole, paid less than their male counterparts for doing the same jobs?
- Can you explain to me why you continue to exploit many VL staff who are on casual contracts? Again, if you are not investing seriously in your staff, then – by extension – you are telling us, the students, that you don’t really care about our education.
- Can you tell me why Senior Management earn exorbitant sums of money while our lecturers – the staff on the ground – continue to lose wages in real terms and have seen no increase in pay? Once again, by refusing to invest in your staff you are telling us students that our education does not matter to you.
- Finally – and most importantly – can you explain to me the steps you are going to take to stop this industrial action? I would like a clear statement of intent as to your proposals in resolving this dispute that demonstrates a meaningful response to my questions and to the issues our lecturers are campaigning for.
I understand that the Chair of UCU, Linda Cronin, has informed the Student Union that she will happily debate the Vice-Chancellor over the above issues at a public student meeting. Will Vice-Chancellor Ezingeard be willing to discuss these issues with the branch Chair? If not, why not? And what does he say in response? I would very much like to hear from the Vice-Chancellor as to why the above issues have not been resolved and how he intends to resolve them.
I stand beside my lecturers in solidarity, and I request not simply a cut-and-pasted acknowledgement of this email but a meaningful response in answer to my questions.
Kind regards,
[Your name here]”