Author: UCU Nottingham

Today’s well-attended members meeting centred around two sets of motions. The first motion passed with 96% in favour directs the branch to enter into dispute to combat the risk of compulsory redundancies.

Motion on UoN No Compulsory Redundancies

This branch notes:

• The investment of £91.5m (including VAT) for purchase and base refit of Castle Meadow Campus (CMC);
• Management’s admission that the sale of CMC in part or whole is currently being discussed, as this campus does not fulfil UoN’s needs;
• After decades of neglect, UoN infrastructure is falling apart. The list of buildings in dire need of repair include the Sir Clive Granger Building, the Medical School and several Student Halls amongst others;
• Due to the Mutually Agreed Resignation Scheme in 2024, almost 300 colleagues already left UoN recently, resulting in an increase in workload for remaining staff;
• Management’s current widespread use of ‘protected’ and ‘without prejudice’ conversations in several parts of the university in an attempt to push people to leave the university based on spurious and non-existent performance criteria;
• The ongoing capability mapping of APM staff, while our APM colleagues do their best to accommodate the additional work that is required in making Unicore fit for purpose;
• Several people in school leadership roles have reported that they are being asked to reduce activities in their schools by 20 per cent. This seems to be happening right across the institution;
• On Monday February 17, our Branch President wrote to the Vice Chancellor to ask formally if she could rule out compulsory redundancies this academic year and next. The following morning she replied making it quite clear that she was not prepared to rule out compulsory redundancies in either case.

This branch believes:

• That while there is a challenging financial environment across Higher Education in the UK, the scale of the projected deficit at the University of Nottingham is due to ongoing local financial mismanagement, evidenced by infrastructure investment in excess of affordability and the spectacularly disastrous purchase of CMC;
• That management continues with its failed top-down approach to decision-making overlooking existing expertise at UoN;
• That management is currently moving towards a large-scale phase of compulsory redundancies;
• That staff have lost trust in management as a result of the manufactured uncertainty causing significant levels of additional stress;

This branch resolves:

• Not to accept any compulsory redundancies;
• To declare an industrial dispute over the VC’s failure to rule out compulsory redundancies this and next academic year and to lay the groundwork for a ballot for industrial action unless the University agrees in writing to rule out compulsory redundancies in this year and the next.

No compulsory redundancies at UoN!