Time Off for Trade Unions - Duties

Employees who are Trade Union officers are entitled to reasonable paid time off, in accordance with the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992, where the duties are concerned with:

• Negotiations, Consultations and Communications with the University of York about matters which fall within the University of York Employee Relations Agreement and Structure and for which the Trade Unions are recognised for the purposes of collective bargaining by the University of York.
• This may include, for example, matters relating to terms and conditions of employment, engagement/termination/suspension of employment, matters of discipline, grievance, capability and welfare, Trade Union membership, facilities for Trade Union officers and machinery for negotiation, consultation and other procedures, this being an indicative and not exhaustive list.

Employees who are Trade Union officers are statutorily entitled to take a reasonable amount of paid time off to accompany a worker at a disciplinary or grievance hearing so long as they have been certified by their Trade Union as being capable of acting as a worker’s companion.

The following is a list of known formal duties that occur throughout the Academic Year:

Formal Meetings:

Joint Negotiation and Consultation Committee (JNCC), Sub JNCCs for example the Special Interest Group (SIG) for Policy, Workplace Health and Safety Committee, Collective Consultation, Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Committee, Athena SWAN Steering group, Race Equality Coordination Group, Accessibility Coordinations group and Temporary Working Groups.

TWGs are defined by the JNCC and have included issues such as Statute and Ordinances, Time Off and Facilities.

Case Work:

Casework is defined by three broad categories; Individual, Health and Safety and Learning.

Individual casework may be a combination of the following broad issues:

• Terms and Conditions of Employment including:
• the physical conditions in which the employee is required to work
• engagement, non-engagement, termination and suspension of employment
• trade union membership or non membership
• Disciplinary
• Grievance
• Capability
• Health and wellbeing

Health and Safety casework includes those issues identified at Annex B.

Learning casework includes those issues identified at Annex C.

Additional Allocation

In recognition of the various project work that takes place throughout the year, an additional allocation above the standard allocation will be provided. The following is an example of known workstreams; University strategy, Health & wellbeing, Gender Equality.

In recognition of the role of Trade Union representatives in supporting employees through organisational change, additional facilities time will be made available to support organisational change projects, further details can be found at Appendix G.

Regional/National Meetings

The University agrees that each Trade Union may have up to a total of 5 days per year to allow for attendance at Regional or National conferences or meetings (but not demonstrations or similar) related to Trade Union support in Higher Education. These five days may be for one nominated accredited Trade Union representative or may be split between nominated accredited Trade Union representatives, provided the total does not exceed five days. This time off will be paid and forms part of the additional allocation, noted in Appendix G.

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• Last reviewed and updated: 5 August 2021