New on the blog: a post before tomorrow's Emergency General Meeting, outlining plans for a discussion about how to seek to engage with SMT over the coming term, and a motion for the Equalities Conference:
Congrats
🎓To all students getting results today - congratulations on your hard work and achievements.
Whatever your next step, we’re fighting for a fairer, properly funded education system where all students can thrive without debt or hardship.
*internal anti-casualised screaming*
This.
The government has created those conditions but they are then described as though"that's just the way it is".
As we move into the next phase of the admissions cycle with results on Thursday, and the inevitable implications of that for 2025-26 institutional budgets, we strongly encourage everyone to keep a close eye on how those budgets are being managed in their institutions...
The results of our Vote of No Confidence are now out. Members voted in favour of a VONC, with a very strong preference for expressing no confidence in both the VCP and SMT. Find out more on the blog, and watch out for an invitation to an EGM in September.
Now up on the blog: a reflection on the urgency of developing a sustainable strategy in order to preserve the College's legacy.
...I mean, we'd hope this might prompt some reflection on value for money from consultants, but we know that's far too optimistic.
The results of our Vote of No Confidence are now out. Members voted in favour of a VONC, with a very strong preference for expressing no confidence in both the VCP and SMT. Find out more on the blog, and watch out for an invitation to an EGM in September.
Are you involved in preventing harassment and sexual misconduct in higher education? Ever wondered about how to reach postgraduate research students with your work?
We've just launched a toolkit to help!
ukcge.ac.uk/assets/resou...
Members have been e-mailed this morning about a Vote Of No Confidence. Please do check your inboxes for details and the voting link.
Members have been e-mailed this morning about a Vote Of No Confidence. Please do check your inboxes for details and the voting link.
We are pleased that at the Townhall with University staff and in an interview with The Courier, Prof. Nigel Seaton confirmed that
“There’s no plan to have redundancies afterwards [after VS]. There’s no secret plan B where we might have redundancies.”
www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/politics/...
Please sign to halt outsourcing plans 👇
University of Surrey proposes to employ all new Professional Services staff through a subsidiary company on lesser T&Cs.
This is an existential threat to our university & sector.
speakout.web.ucu.org.uk/operate-surr...
@ucu.org.uk
The results of the De Montfort university UCU branch's formal No Confidence ballot have now been confirmed: a resounding 90% voted no confidence in the VC and the ULB
This is the fourth significant No Confidence vote passed during the current round of proposed redundancies
Huge congratulations to our comrades at @ducuuo.bsky.social - an absolutely outstanding result, and one that hopefully indicates a new way of collaborating with the incoming management team picking up quite a lot of pieces.
This information is not held. Although NOUS has done consultancy work for Queen Mary in the last five years, we do not hold any contract. We can tell you that total spend including VAT with NOUS Group UK Ltd was £435,275.34 between 2019-23
Question: does NOUS simply not do contracts? That’s a whole lot of money to spend without a contract, especially since all the other consultancies (Deloitte: £600,000; QS: £250,000) in that same Freedom of Information request did draw up paperwork. #UKHE
www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/news/educati...
DMU has made it back into Private Eye's latest edition thanks to the legal situation around its Dubai campus. As noted by @privateeyenews.bsky.social the apparent lack of due diligence on this matter is deeply troubling.
Members should check their inboxes for what looks like an interesting @ucu.org.uk CPD session on Divestment, Reinvestment, and Ethical Finance Training on 8th July - given the proposed restructuring plans currently in development, this is a great chance to get more familiar with university finances.
Amazing work by @newcastleucu.bsky.social - shows what can be done with solidarity and persistence!
This is what happens when SMT's refuse to be transparent with or accountable to the community they serve
www.bbc.com/news/article...
Picketers stood behind a line of pieces of paper, filled with stick figures (representing lost staff), and with doors (representing vacancies that aren't open for replacement).
Standing behind what our co-president has named "The Wall Of Lost Staff". We're striking because we need to know that the wall isn't going to get any longer.
A washing line with over a dozen pieces of paper, each representing either five lost colleagues, or five vacancies.
The line continues...
The line ends.
Our tribute to our former colleagues, lost to a "voluntary" severance process under the shadow of compulsory redundancy. Each figure is a colleague gone, each door a vacancy closed to rehiring.
The previous VC had 'an "overbearing leadership style" and a dislike of potentially awkward confrontations or questioning'.
#UKHE 'leadership' has GOT to learn that the only way forward is through conversation not diktat. Stop depicting people asking questions as attackers; they're *helpful*.
Today I am ON STRIKE. I'm striking because the University of Edinburgh has claimed the need for 'savings' in staff costs amounting to £90 million. The Union estimates this to be more than 1000 staff. (Not because of everyone being on 90k+, but because of the attendant 'savings' from mass layoffs)
It's our open day today and I'm on strike with @ucuedinburgh.bsky.social. Management plans to cut £140 million are opportunistic, misguided and wrong, and will harm the future of the university. Read our Joint Unions Financial Working Group blog: www.ucuedinburgh.org.uk/blog/2eppzf7...
The @ucuedinburgh.bsky.social picket at Edinburgh Futures Institute is assembling
In light of the catastrophic failings of governance and financial management at the University of Dundee, we continue our fight to save jobs.
We’re asking for a commitment to no compulsory redundancies and the removal of the currently active Section 188.
#SaveDundeeUni #SaveHE
Now 99 universities officially making redundancies, and I've heard of a few more to take us over the 100 mark. If I were a student, I'd be 'shocked and offended' by that more than anything else. Still nothing is done. qmucu.org/qmul-transfo...
"The university needs to look at the election of a leadership that staff can get behind and which is committed to resolving the current situation without the use of compulsory redundancies.” @carloucu.bsky.social @ducuuo.bsky.social
www.heraldscotland.com/news/2525296...
