UCU members rallying outside King’s Cross station, London, November 2022. Photo Workers.
Members of the University and College Union are taking action across the country in defence of jobs and conditions.
At Aston University, the employer has recently proposed to make 150 professional services staff redundant. Redundancy selection is also taking place in chemistry and maths, and languages staff are in a separate redundancy process.
At Edge Hill University in Lancashire, staff are organising to stop job cuts in the Department of English and Creative Arts. The employer wants to sack 11 out of 29 academic staff, issuing formal redundancy notices in June.
At Goldsmiths, University of London, the employer wants to cut one in six academic jobs. Staff at Goldsmiths are already undertaking a marking boycott and will be striking for two weeks later in June to defeat the attempt to sack these staff.
University of Lincoln staff have voted to take industrial action over threats to cut over 200 jobs. 80 per cent of members who voted supported industrial action, on a turnout of 55 per cent.
Sheffield Hallam University staff have voted to strike against cuts and attacks on staff members’ terms and conditions.
Staff at the University of Sheffield have won a new and more secure contract for graduate teaching assistants. Zero-hour contracts will be replaced by fixed-term, guaranteed-hours contracts, which will enable postgraduate researchers to access full employment rights.
After an intense and sustained campaign, University of Sussex staff have won a new agreement for postgraduate researchers contracted to teach (doctoral tutors). This deal meets all five of their key demands, most notably, a new workload allocation model which will lead to significant pay rises for many members.