No compulsory redundancies
Rally, 8 October
Our president, Malcolm Povey, sent the following email to members on Thursday 8 October:
Dear UCU Member,
What a brilliant rally this afternoon. Over 200 staff and students were joined by staff from Leeds College of Art and Leeds Streetscene (Bins) in a rally to Defend Jobs, Defend Education. The message came across loud and clear that “United we stand” in the defence of jobs.
Yesterday afternoon the officers of UNISON, UNITE and the UCU were called into the Vice Chancellors Office to be told that the university was cutting its budget based on ‘unrestricted income’ by 10% or about £35million. Based on wages forming about 60% of expenditure, we estimate that this amounts to savings of around £21million on salaries. Alternatively, 10% of around 7000 university jobs is 700 jobs. If the cuts are confined to grade 8 posts, this would amount to around 400 – 450 academic and academic related jobs.
In addition to putting our members under intolerable pressure, the scale of the cuts will alter the nature of the institution in a disastrous way. The Vice Chancellor has a duty to defend the academic activity in the institution, instead he announced the cuts the day after the Tory Shadow Chancellor George Osborne called for severe cuts in Public Expenditure. The three campus unions are united in condemning this action and have pledged to fight to save every job. We propose to approach the Vice Chancellor for a meeting at which we will put the following demand.
No compulsory redundancies
Meaningful consultation with the Trade Unions over restructuring, review and job preservation. This means the university joining with the campus trade unions to form a committee for the avoidance of redundancy and therefore (a) A Freeze on external recruitment; (b) Termination of all consultancy agreements; (c) No outsourcing; (d) No bonuses; (e) A Freeze on pay of non-clinical people earning over £100k; (f) Equality impact assessment; (g) Freeze on building program.
There will be a general meeting on Wednesday 21st October at which these serious matters will be discussed and the UCU strategy for the defence of jobs put to the membership.
Rally, 8 October
