Edinburgh University staff stage three-day strike over £140m cuts and job losses
Staff at Edinburgh University today began three says of strike action in a dispute over £140million cuts and job losses, including the possible use of compulsory redundancies.
Member of the University and College Union (UCU) will be on strike on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday this week. On Wednesday, November 19, there will be a rally outside the Scottish Parliament starting at 1pm.
And they have warned that future action could also see a marking and assessment boycott.
The strikes follow a fresh ballot where a 60 per cent turnout produced an 86 per cent vote in favour of strike action. The re-ballot was required because trade union legislation means that ballots need to be refreshed after six months.
The union said that the strength of vote in the face of management intransigence showed the anger at senior management’s plans to make cuts and slash staff numbers.
The union estimates that there could be around 1,800 jobs lost. It says hundreds of jobs have already gone in ‘hidden redundancies’, with staff on fixed-term contracts not having their contracts renewed as would ordinarily have happened.
The unions says hourly paid staff have also had their paid hours reduced, making life and financial planning for them and their families increasingly difficult, and also cutting employment opportunities for postgraduate research students.
The UCU is calling on senior managers at the university to rule out the use of compulsory redundancies.
Sophia Woodman, Edinburgh University UCU branch president, said: “I’m angry that, nine months on from announcing these cuts, staff are no clearer to knowing their future and senior managers’ plans.
“I’m angry that staff had to be re-balloted over taking industrial action in a dispute that should have ended months ago and that that we are once again having to take strike action because senior managers have refused to meaningfully engage to end this dispute.
“With hundreds of staff having already left, some pushed out, and thousands more worried for their future, university senior management need to finally do the right thing; commit to no compulsory redundancies; and accept the union’s open offer of meaningful talks with a view to ending the dispute.
“Unless and until they do, the threat of more strikes, more disruption and a marking and assessment boycott will hang over the university. Students know exactly who’s to blame.
“It’s also time for MSPs and politicians across Edinburgh and the Lothians to take a keener interest in what’s happening at the university, and for them to impress on the principal that threatening staff with compulsory redundancies is wrong and unbecoming in an institution which is receiving more than £67million from the Scottish Government in teaching grants this academic year alone.”
UCU general secretary Jo Grady said: “Nine months after announcing huge cuts at Edinburgh, senior management still can’t tell their workforce whether or not they need to use compulsory redundancies. If Peter Mathieson, on £400,000 plus a year, can’t set out a way forward that doesn’t involve decimating the university and its staff, and if senior managers aren’t willing engage with the union to resolve this dispute, then we need government and politicians to intervene.”