Universities

Unison HE branches to strike

Twenty-one UNISON Higher Education (HE) branches have held a successful strike ballot against a 3% pay offer and are now making plans for strikes, probably in the first weeks of the new academic year for maximum impact. These branches are: Manchester Metropolitan; Leeds Beckett; Birkbeck College; Liverpool John Moores; City University; Liverpool Hope; King’s College London; University of Brighton; University of the West of England; London South Bank; Bath Spa; University of Leeds; University of Gloucestershire; University of Bristol; Royal Northern College of Music; SOAS; University of...

UCU’s new ballot starts 7 September

University staff are heading back into dispute in the new academic year, as the University and College Union (UCU) launches a ballot for action over pay and pensions on 7 September. Unlike last year’s ballot, this will be an aggregated vote: if an outright majority of members vote for strikes, everyone will be able to join in, even if their individual workplace hasn’t met the 50% turnout threshold. When a few years ago, UCU began to use the tactic of disaggregated ballots to ensure at least some universities could strike, it was widely welcomed as a way to circumvent the imposition of the 50%...

Unison to strike in some universities

Over 90 Unison Higher Education (HE) branches recently took part in a disaggregated ballot to strike against the national pay offer of around 3%. It was a poor time to ballot over the summer, with many people being on leave, but four Scottish branches and 18 English branches got over the 50% threshold, and many more were close. Welsh branches organised an aggregated ballot but did not get over the threshold. The Scottish branches have set five strike days in September/October, in the welcome week period at the start of the new academic year. English branches will be encouraged by the union to...

UCU to ballot in the new term

On 12 August, the University and College Union (UCU) launched its latest ballot campaign in Higher Education, “UCU Rising” . Our union will ballot for industrial action during the first term of the 2023 academic year (exact dates not yet set). It will be a membership-wide aggregated ballot, so under the 2016 Trade Union Act, this means that for a valid mandate 50%-plus-1 of all balloted members in the UCU’s higher education section must vote, with a majority in favour of action. Members will get separate ballots for the pay and working conditions dispute (covering UCU members in all UK higher...

Goldsmiths UCU settles but the fight continues

Goldsmiths UCU have settled a long-running dispute over job cuts and restructuring at the college. The agreement came with Goldsmith’s management under considerable pressure over a marking boycott in spite of their attempts to undermine boycott by progressing and graduating students without their full sets of marks. As a result, the branch has won a commitment from the management to no further compulsory redundancies as the remaining elements of a two year “recovery programme” are implemented. There were concessions on other terms and conditions. The branch was not, however, able to stop this...

Levelling-down in Wolverhampton

At the University of Wolverhampton, hundreds of jobs are set to be cut among the 2000-plus employees. Overseeing this is interim Vice-Chancellor (VC) Ian Campbell — who left his previous role as VC of Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU) just two years in, after making 150 people “voluntarily” redundant in late 2020. In Wolverhampton the redundancies are so big that some will almost surely be compulsory. They come shortly after a student recruitment freeze affecting 146 courses, including Performing Arts, Chemistry and Physics. Rumours abound that senior staff — including research institute...

Unison ballots for pay action in HE

Ninety-four Higher Education (HE) branches in the public services union Unison are preparing to ballot to strike for a 2022-23 pay rise above inflation. The national offer is 3% while RPI is currently 9%. The ground for the ballot was prepared last year when nine branches struck against a below-inflation pay rise; 38 branches took part in the ballot in 2021-22. Although that was only a handful of branches, it showed that branches could get over the 50% ballot turnout threshold and it encouraged more branches to try this time. The ballot opens on 22 July and closes on 19 August in Scotland and...

Reinstate Freedman and Khiabany!

Sign the open letter here Since the beginning of April, the University and College Union (UCU) at Goldsmiths University of London has been engaged in a marking and assessment boycott, continuing an academic-year-long fight to stop the compulsory redundancies of 20 members of staff and a damaging restructure. In response to the boycott, the Senior Management Team (SMT) introduced Exceptional Academic Regulations (EARs), which removed academic oversight, and the use of incomplete sets of marks to progress and graduate students on a formal but provisional basis. This move is not in the interests...

Starmer to lurch on tuition fees and Europe

“Support the abolition of tuition fees” was part of one of Keir Starmer’s “Ten pledges” in the 2020 leadership election. Back then Starmer said: “Labour must stand by its commitment to end the national scandal of spiralling student debt and abolish tuition fees. We lost the election, but we did not lose our values or determination to tackle the injustice facing young people going to university.” Now the Financial Times reports the “desire to sound more fiscally responsible is also likely to lead to Labour dropping one of its signature policies from the 2019 general election — the scrapping of...

Local deals and the UCU disputes

As the long-running University and College Union (UCU) disputes in Higher Education (HE) continue, further local settlements have been offered to branches to withdraw disruptive marking and assessment boycotts. The local offers provide cash for staff in certain campuses, but the national picture of the strike is being eroded. On the one hand, branches winning settlements are ensuring higher pay for campus staff in the near-term, highly important in the context of an escalating cost-of-living crisis. On the other, the likelihood that our union will win our national disputes reduces in the short...

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