The UCU branch at De Montfort University Leicester

📢 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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@lrbobrien.bsky.social Agreed - no-one wants to be out and away from students, or lose a day's pay every time we do, but we cannot afford not to stand up for ourselves and students too. Happy staff = happy students!

Snapshots from today's protest against staff cuts, an incredible display of solidarity and support from many student groups.
(Photos courtesy of www.instagram.com/amplifyprote...)

Durham University staff begin industrial action this week Staff at Durham University will begin working to rule tomorrow.

From today, staff at Durham University begin working to rule.

No more covering for the hundreds of jobs that have been cut.

Staff will work strictly to contracted hours and withdraw goodwill.

Universities cannot operate on unpaid labour.

www.ucu.org.uk/article/1441...

Ah welcome to the Dubai campus club!

Image description: Graph of median pay relative to 2018 adjusted for inflation shows it decreasing almost every year to 2025, where it is nearly 10% lower than in 2018. Picture of Unison, Unite, and UCU union members on picket lines with banners.

We can win a better pay offer in 2026!
We've suffered a 9% pay cut in real terms since 2018.

Management imposed another real-terms cut last year - insisting that a 2% increase was all they could afford - and then refused to negotiate with the unions. 2026 pay negotiations begin in April.

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.

The lack of accountability for university leaders, who are allowed to sack (or "voluntarily redundancy") staff over and over again is staggering.

*AT A UNIVERSITY SPIN-OFF*???

How is that legal? He makes decisions that impact the resources (financial or otherwise) that that spin-off benefits from.

With Court agendas missing, minutes published late and papers non-existent, it’s our view that the important governance meetings at the University of Dundee should be live streamed and recorded, for openness and transparency.

The HSE has been clear: UoB’s current arrangements for managing work‑related stress are inconsistent, ineffective, and developed without meaningful consultation with staff.
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The Higher Education sector has to get out there and defend itself, on the front foot, fighting fire with fire. Its enemies are coming at it. But it's just asleep at the wheel.

There's always money for the new managerial roles, but oddly never money to actually teach or do research. Strange.

We devastated by the loss of our student and thank the Gazette for this important initiative. Please contribute if you can.

‘If I think about what this means, I want to cry’: what happens when a city loses its university? When Essex University’s Southend campus opened, it was a message of hope for a ‘left behind’ UK seaside town. Its closure will be felt far beyond its 800 students, some of whom will not get their degr...

Excellent article but stark reminder that for all the perceptions of universities as ivory towers for elites, they are actually vital hubs in towns n cities supporting local businesses and providing key services as well as education….

As a result of our own massive investments in Dubai and London campuses (I'm no smart academic person but I'm pretty sure Dubai and London already have universities), we conducted a VONC in our leadership. They just shrugged. As did the Board.

How many universities are being sabotaged by people neck-deep in bad investments, cosplaying as property tycoons at the publics expense? How many opportunities did we have to prevent this?

And I'm also not in charge of the university, but I also feel like maybe the people who are in charge of making financial choices for the university should be the ones who face the consequences of these horrible decisions. Not staff, not students, not faculty, not the community.

Screenshot of a THE story with the headline "Nottingham posts £85 million deficit as value of campus plummets"

Screenshot of a NottinghamshireLive news story with the headline "University of Nottingham's disastrous 'vanity project' campus could be sold for just £14."

Now I'm not an economist, but I feel like this is not great economic news.

Stronger together ✊

Hear from #LboroUCU members on why union membership matters and how we support each other.

Be part of it: ucu.lboro.ac.uk/join/

@ucu.org.uk #UCU #JoinAUnion

QMUL's poster removal: Management threatens staff with disciplinary action over posters and stickers No clarity is given about what is deemed antisemitic Management reduces all Jewish colleagues to one position Possible precedent of repression & censorship .Management refuses to engage meaningfully Management repeats the same statement they issued in February 2024 when they broke into the union office Management claims this is an established policy though they escalate from previous practice

Colleagues were interviewed on BBC Radio 4 about @qmul.bsky.social's sudden escalation in taking down posters & threatening disciplinary action.

It is a great explanation of what's happening & its dangers.

Listen from 22min in: www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/... or clipped: youtu.be/SJGnCrDaCf0?...

💪💪💪 @ucunorthumbria.bsky.social members start indefinite Action Short of a Strike @northumbriauni.bsky.social on 12 February. Strike Action is currently scheduled for...

Higher education pension cuts - Early Day Motions - UK Parliament That this House expresses its alarm at the growing number of higher education institutions deploying approaches which are having a negative impact on the pension schemes of academics and staff, including through fire and rehire proposals and other approaches tantamount to forcing workers onto worse contracts, terms and conditions; further expresses alarm that such actions have triggered trade disputes at institutions such as Southampton Solent and Northumbria universities, where staff are facing threats of dismissal and permanent pay freezes, respectively, unless they agree to pension cuts; insists that using subsidiary companies to circumvent employment rights and to undermine pay, terms or conditions is unacceptable behaviour that simply serves to negatively impact industrial relations further in a sector already suffering from mass redundancies and industrial action; calls on the Office for Students immediately to investigate institutions accused by trade unions of undermining pension rights to establish whether they are failing in their duties, including those relating to good governance and protecting the interests of students; and further calls on the Government to take urgent steps to prevent pension cuts and a race to the bottom in higher education provision, including through legislative change if necessary.

UCU members: MPs are considering an Early Day Motion on higher education pension cuts that condemns fire-and-rehire tactics, use of subsidiaries to undermine contracts, and threats of dismissal or pay freezes to force pension cuts. edm.parliament.uk/ea...
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Two Weeks In The Death Spiral Of Cardiff University - Reading Time: 4 minutesBy an anonymous academic. Cover image by Adwitiya Pal On the second day of classes…

Happy anniversary to us 1800 academic staff at Cardiff University. One year ago we were put at risk of redundancy by June 2025 in huge meetings flanked by security. Solidarity with Essex, Sheffield, Leicester & all colleagues faced with similar destructive cruelty ❤️

voice.cymru/two-weeks-in...

Solidarity with our friends in Dundee

Work‑related stress is a health and safety issue, not a personal weakness. UoB has legal duties to assess and control risks under HSE stress Management Standards #UoBStressBreach

Do you have any info for actions next week that we can share?

All Leicester-area DMU UCU members, please join our friends today!

😂 one can never assume anything at "the empowering university"!

Univeristy management claim that there is no money to keep people in jobs, yet look at their expenses…