Dear Comrades,
We hope you are looking forward to a restful bank holiday weekend (and thank you for holding the fort if you are working!). Here’s some branch news and suggested actions to help you close out the week. Remember, you are allowed reasonable time out of your role for union activities 😏.
📝 Branch meetings
The next branch meeting will be on 24th September at 12:00
ℹ️ To see branch meetings and other events in your calendar: ‘Add calendar’ > ‘Add from directory’ > search for ‘unison-social@bristol.ac.uk’ > select Add to ‘My calendars’ > Save
August branch meeting recap
➡️ Meeting recording and transcript
➡️ Minutes
➡️ Agenda
🎞️ UoB UNISON film club September screening – Sorry to Bother You (2018)
Join us on Wednesday 23rd September for the second meeting of the soon-to-be-legendary UoB UNISON film club!
Sorry to Bother You (2018) is a political satire that follows a Black telemarketer whose rapid rise up the corporate ladder exposes the absurdities and brutal realities of capitalism.
📅 Wednesday 23rd September, 5:30pm
📍 Richmond Building Cinema Room 5.90, 105 Queens Rd, Clifton, Bristol BS8 1LN
🎞️ Sorry to bother You (2018)
✉️ Angry about how your restructure has been handled? Help draft our open letter
Some of our members are currently working together to draft an open letter of complaint to the senior management team over how recent restructures have been handled. The letter is about how restructures were managed, rather than about what happened.
If you were affected by a recent restructure and would like to describe your experience, complain about mishandling, or make suggestions for how restructures could be handled better, then please contribute to the document.
➡️ Contribute to the open letter
🧑💻 Update your details on MyUNISON to get ballot-ready
Upcoming changes in national legislation will allow trade unions to conduct strike ballots via email rather than postal ballot. This is good news because it will make voting much easier. However, as things stand currently, email ballots will only be able to be sent to personal email addresses, i.e. not your bristol.ac.uk email address. In the coming months, we will begin to start strongly suggesting that members update their email on MyUNISON to a personal email address.
To update your email address activate your account/login at MyUNISON:
➡️ MyUNISON
Click ‘personal details’
Click ‘edit email’
Enter a personal email address
Enter the verification code
➡️ Read our guide on how to access MyUNISON and the important options you can change there
➡️ Learn more about the changes to ballot legislation
⚖️ Bristol City Council Workers Bristol Weighting Petition
According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), the average rent in Bristol amounts to 45% of the average salary, making it the least affordable city to live in the UK.
A weighting is an additional payment given to employees in expensive areas to offset higher living costs.
Our comrades in the Bristol local government branch of UNISON have launched a petition calling on Bristol City Council to investigate the cost, benefits and implementation of a Bristol weighting payment to all Bristol City Council employees.
This petition could help build support for the idea of a Bristol weighting across other areas of the city, including at the University of Bristol.
Most London universities already have such a weighting, as well as Oxford University.
The key point is that these weightings are paid in addition to nationally negotiated pay spine salaries (these are the spine points which are negotiationed between UCEA and the five Higher Education trade unions and which have left us with below-inflation pay increases for 17 years).
➡️ Sign the petition here! (closes on 22/09/2026)
📄 Andrea Egan’s statement on the death of Professor Arday and the role of the media
Our general secretary, Andrea Egan, has written a statement expressing her concern over the role the media played in the tragic death of Professor Jason Arday.
📢 Stop the Militarisation of UK Universities
The UK government recently announced a new “Defence Universities Alliance”, and unfortunately the University of Bristol is one of 35 universities which has signed up. We will have more to say on this soon, but for now we are inviting people to sign this petition to Stop the Militarisation of UK Universities
👋 Keep in touch
Check our website for updates: University of Bristol UNISON
Join our branch WhatsApp group: UoB UNISON General Chat
Follow us on Instagram: @unison_bristol_uni
In solidarity,
Your UoB Unison committee 💚💜