{"id":13,"date":"2019-03-13T14:13:20","date_gmt":"2019-03-13T14:13:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/users\/unison\/?page_id=13"},"modified":"2026-03-13T10:33:01","modified_gmt":"2026-03-13T10:33:01","slug":"welcome","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/users\/unison\/","title":{"rendered":"Welcome"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Welcome to the Lancaster University Branch of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.unison.org.uk\/\">UNISON<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We are a branch of the national trade union <a href=\"https:\/\/www.unison.org.uk\/\">UNISON<\/a>, and at Lancaster University we represent members from across the organisation who have administrative, technical, support and manual roles &#8211; collectively known as Professional Services. We also have members who are employed by organisations external to the University, who work on the University campus, for example LUSU.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Our news is shared via email (to your preferred email address, using our secure UNISON membership database), and more frequently via our Teams site, which all members can join.  Just <a href=\"https:\/\/teams.microsoft.com\/l\/team\/19%3Ac151a089f6244ccd8acf308b3f8c7dae%40thread.tacv2\/conversations?groupId=67486812-713e-4156-a769-f8e6288e9d96&amp;tenantId=9c9bcd11-977a-4e9c-a9a0-bc734090164a\">click here<\/a> to request to join that Teams site.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We are an officially recognised trade union at Lancaster University &#8211; along with Unite and UCU &#8211; for the purposes of consultation and negotiation. The three trade unions work together on all restructurings or other big projects, to support members across all areas. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Together, we have your back.  Together, we are stronger and need our members to work with us to build a stronger branch.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you&#8217;re interested in joining us, you can email the branch to find out more (<a href=\"mailto:unison@lancaster.ac.uk\">unison@lancaster.ac.uk<\/a>), or join online at <a href=\"https:\/\/join.unison.org.uk\/\">join.unison.org.uk<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you&#8217;d like to find out more about getting involved with the branch, come to one of our meetings, or email <a href=\"mailto:unison@lancaster.ac.uk\">unison@lancaster.ac.uk<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you&#8217;re already a UNISON member at Lancaster University, and are experiencing an issue in the workplace for which you need support, advice or representation, please email <a href=\"mailto:unison@lancaster.ac.uk\">unison@lancaster.ac.uk<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Please note: UNISON has a &#8216;four week rule&#8217; which is strictly adhered to.  You must have been a member of the union for at least four weeks prior to any incident\/occurrence taking place for which you require union assistance or representation. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>To help manage our limited time resource, below are guidelines on approaching us if you need help.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol style=\"list-style-type:lower-alpha\" class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Please don\u2019t leave it too late: we appreciate that some issues come out of the blue, but if you do get an inkling that problems are coming, please speak to us at that point. We are in a position to provide better support when matters have not yet reached an urgent or critical stage.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>If you have already sought legal advice from a solicitor, that will disallow your Trade Union from providing advice, including formal representation from our own solicitors.&nbsp; This is standard legal practice.&nbsp; We mention this because this has caused problems for members in the past, whether or not they were already in touch with the branch.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>If you have a query, please take a moment to look through existing <a href=\"https:\/\/portal.lancaster.ac.uk\/intranet\/services\/people\/hr-policiesprocedures\/policiesprocedures\/\">HR Policies &amp; Procedures<\/a>, or existing <a href=\"https:\/\/portal.lancaster.ac.uk\/intranet\/services\/people\/health-and-safety\/about-the-university-health-and-safety-office-team\/\">Health &amp; Safety guidance<\/a>. In the vast majority of queries we often ask you to do this as a first step, so you can frame your first questions.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Welcome to the Lancaster University Branch of UNISON. We are a branch of the national trade union UNISON, and at Lancaster University we represent members from across the organisation who have administrative, technical, support and manual roles &#8211; collectively known as Professional Services. We also have members who are employed by organisations external to the &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/users\/unison\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Welcome&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":8,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-13","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/users\/unison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/13","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/users\/unison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/users\/unison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/users\/unison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/users\/unison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/users\/unison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/13\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":325,"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/users\/unison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/13\/revisions\/325"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/users\/unison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/users\/unison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}