I dropped out of high school, gained a huge amount of often difficult life experience, then went to community college, and now I'm a professor in a prestigious university. There HAS TO BE A PLACE for non-traditional students. www.theguardian.com/education/20...
Show your support for staff out on the pickets again today at the University of Essex.
Over 400 jobs. Southend Campus on the chopping block. This is a wrecking plan for education, for jobs and the city.
Rally to save Southend Campus: Sunday 8 March, 1pm, Pier Hill → Broadway. Join us.
um, asking for a friend, is anyone keeping a list of all the Languages departments/courses that have been cut/under threat in UK universities? #langsky
Trade unions: minimum service level laws and key 2016 restrictions on industrial action and picketing are being repealed, and there will be new rights to time, space and access for union reps and organisers from Oct 2026.
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Precarious contracts: new rights to guaranteed hours that reflect actual hours worked, plus better protection around late shift cancellations, are being phased in.
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Fire and rehire: from Oct 2026, dismissing and re‑engaging to force through changes to pay, hours, leave or pensions will usually be automatically unfair unless the university can show genuine financial necessity.
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📢 Birmingham UCU members – the Employment Rights Act 2025 is now live and it’s a big shift for us in HE.
Key points for staff at UoB:
Unfair dismissal: qualifying service will fall to 6 months and the cap on compensation is going, increasing the risk to employers who sack staff unfairly.
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Is the University of Hertfordshire a fair employer? The University’s senior managers spent almost £14,000 on attending just one awards dinner last November while low-paid staff are resorting to food banks The University Executive Team’s members earn £163,000 on average but its lowest-paid staff earn just £24,685 The University approved a 42% increase in the number of senior managers earning £100,000+ last year while staff received a 1.4% below-inflation pay rise (further contributing to a catastrophic 20-30% real-terms pay cut since 2009) The University holds £104.5 million in cash and short-term deposits but refuses to pay a one-off hardship payment for 2,255 lower-paid staff costing £721,800 To add to the misery, the University refuses to reverse last August’s ‘monstrous’ 50% campus parking charge hike despite our petition gaining almost 1100 signatures And then cuts our staff bonus by 72% from £350 to £100 Is any of this fair? UCU Herts is a trade union representing lecturers and researchers at the University of Hertfordshire. We’re campaigning to make it a fair employer. If you want to join UCU, email us at uhucu@herts.ac.uk or send us your message of support Let’s make the F in the University’s FACES values stand for Fairness
Our branch has launched its campaign to put the Fairness in the University's FACES values.
Do give Albs a grateful fuss from us / admire his gloriousness from a distance (if that's more his speed)!
Reset the "days since Birmingham Uni management make the news for all the wrong reasons" counter, lads.
This account will never not report the #CatsAgainstCasualisation. And what a particularly glorious specimen this is -- what's their name, @majagrundler.bsky.social? Sending lots of solidarity to your (digital) pickets!
We're getting repeat emails about the Staff Survey for the next few weeks.
For last year's survey, all management cared about was the take-up, that was all they asked analysis for -- see FOI.
Relatedly: the KPI for staff engagement is solely the take-up of the survey, not our obvious concerns.
Awesome scenes at another @ucunorthumbria.bsky.social picket line today @northumbriauni.bsky.social. We were delighted and humbled to welcome student Sam, who brought biscuits, and gave a great speech in support of staff. 🫶
Zoom in. See what people (ordinary people, passing by, and students) picked as their preferred pay and pension arrangements. No-one wants to be ripped off. No-one thinks what management @northumbriauni.bsky.social are doing is fair or right. Let's make it stop.
An understated part of this: teaching staff, PhD students, research support staff, technical staff, facilities workers + more ALL voiced zero confidence in university leadership.
Do you have any idea how hard it is to get all these people to agree on anything. The boss is truly the best organizer.
Words of fire! 🔥🔥❤️🔥 Please read and share this current @northumbriauni.bsky.social student's view on @ucunorthumbria.bsky.social's fight for pay and pensions justice, and against management's plans, at Northumbria University ucu-unn.org.uk/blogucu/325-...
No-one wants to go on strike, and no-one ever does it just for themselves. @jimdickinson.bsky.social @moneyontheleft.bsky.social @ukhenews.bsky.social @ucea.bsky.social @andylong6.bsky.social @georgeclarke.bsky.social
A screenshot of an article from ResearchProfessional News with the headline "Nottingham cuts 'theatre status as research-intensive university'"
A screenshot of an article from the BBC with the headline "Unions pass no confidence vote in university bosses'"
A screenshot of an article from NottinghamshireLive with the headline "'Breakdown of trust' at University of Nottingham as Vice Chancellor told to quit'"
Hey! We're in the news again! And if the University believes that all press is good press, they're nailing it.
This sobering SPICe report warns without structural reform to our higher education sector there is a long-term & irreversible decline in university capacity, economic impact, and global reputation.
digitalpublications.parliament.scot/ResearchBrie...
"This matter is not simply regarded as a sectoral problem confined to higher education as it may threaten Scotland's economic future, innovation capacity, and regional stability."
Why hasn't UUK produced a report like this for all of #UKHE? Their strategic ignorance is destructive.
9,600 redundancies at just 24 universities. Imagine what the picture is for the sector as a whole. This is the other half of the student loan scandal picture, which has been national news lately. Nothing at all from the government on a key sector effectively in freefall…
Pour tous les collègues en France qui regardent encore le système britanniques des frais d'inscriptions à la hausse avec des étoiles dans les yeux (si si, on vous voit), une page d'utilité publique de @qmucu.bsky.social qui recense les licenciements, restructurations et fermertures en cours 💔
: Half of UK universities face a deficit next year. Up to 50 could close.
That is a sector in crisis. Simply blaming a tuition fee freeze and nudging fees up with inflation is not a plan. Where is the long-term strategy for higher education?
#Universities #HigherEducation
Grateful to @nataliegreenpeer.bsky.social for pointing out the *financial system* is the problem. Horrified at the evasive response by the minister; Bennett didn't query the fees, she queried the entire instability and reliability on chasing funding.
♥️ the @qmucu.bsky.social shout-out #UKHE
In an unprecedented move, one reflective of the deeply unprecedented times at our university, UoN branches of three different unions (@UCU.org.uk, @unisonorg.uk, and Unite) have all successfully passed motions of no confidence in the Vice Chancellor and the entire executive board.
You can't have a university without staff. Yet somehow managers (and trustees?) seem to think you can have a university without that staff trusting management.
Is the screen-based bureaucratic management tasks (attendance, record keeping, email torrents, form filling, reimbursement labyrinths, inane video training boxticking, multiplication of online platforms and teaching materials) demanded by Uk university making us dumber and exhausted?
Yes.
and the last four years have been so very rosey...
UK unis: we need to pay mid-six figure salaries to the people in charge, because it is imperative we get the best and brightest to lead us.
Also UK unis: It isn't reasonable to expect us to do anything to solve any of our problems, or even to check whether a new problem might be brewing.
Well now, doesn’t feel like gaslighting at all that individual programs are being made “accountable” for the future earnings of their graduates.
!!!!
