Author: Tom Coogan

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Motion – Hard strike days with picket lines!

This branch notes:

  • Our strategy focusing on taking out whole modules across the full semester is working. Management clearly feels the pressure. 
  • More pressure is still needed to shift management towards a solution of the dispute. 
  • UCU members, particularly APM members and academic members with no or fewer teaching responsibilities have asked directly and via their UCU Reps for named hard strike days with picket lines, alongside existing strategic striking. 
  • That picket lines provide spaces of practical and direct solidarity and community, of standing side by side with colleagues on strike together. Additionally, pickets make our dispute an unavoidable physical fact that is highly visible to non-striking staff, the student body, and the wider public.
  • That several UCU branches across the UK, which are in dispute with their employer, have decided on 27 October as a day of action. 

    This branch believes: 
  • Maximising industrial action that is both highly disruptive to the ordinary running of the University creates further leverage that will enhance our chances of a resolution to the dispute. 
  • Combined with the overall strategy of taking out whole modules, additional picket lines will increase the visibility of industrial action and, thus, increase pressure on management further.
  • Taking action on 27 October allows us to raise awareness to our local problems while showing solidarity with other UCU branches in dispute at the same time. 

    This branch, therefore, resolves: 
  • We will have a hard strike day with picket lines on Tuesday, 27 October when other UCU branches across the country are also involved in action. 
  • To call additional weekly hard strike days with picket lines later in the semester, if the dispute remains unresolved.
  • To continue with strategic striking on all other days, ensuring that none of the following take place: lectures, tutorials, labs or project supervision. 
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UCU FN2 counterproposal (Part 1 & 2)

Part 1

    • Identifies more than £40 million of recurring annual savings and income opportunities, exceeding the savings currently being sought through redundancies.
    • Shows how substantial savings can be achieved through attrition, workforce planning, consultancy reductions, procurement efficiencies and tighter control of discretionary spending.
    • Proposes measures to protect and grow income through recruitment, retention, degree apprenticeships, CPD and other high-margin educational activity.
    • Challenges the University’s assumptions around surplus targets, strategic spending and capital investment, arguing that alternative choices are available.
    • Sets out a more federated model of governance, returning greater decision-making power to Schools and local units.

This is not simply a critique of management’s plans. It is a detailed and financially credible alternative vision for the University, that could end this death spiral.

Part 2

This covers area by area counterproposals

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University of Nottingham Staff to Strike as Council Decides Future of Jobs

Staff at the University of Nottingham will strike on 30th September and 1st October, as the University’s governing Council meets to decide the final Future Nottingham Phase 2 (FN2) restructuring plans. The two-day strike will be followed by sustained strike action from 5th October to 11th December, alongside action short of strike.

The action comes as both UCU and UNISON have passed votes of no confidence in University Council over its handling of FN2. Council is the University’s governing body – effectively its board of trustees. It has ultimate responsibility for the University’s finances and strategy and, crucially, for holding senior management to account. The unions argue that Council has failed to do so.

Council rubber stamped the draft FN2 business case despite overwhelming opposition from Senate, the University’s principal academic body, and despite serious concerns about the evidence underpinning the university’s disastrous proposals that could result in compulsory redundancies and the loss of entire areas of teaching and research.

UCU argues that there is now no financial justification for compulsory redundancies. Undergraduate recruitment has been strong, applications for voluntary redundancy have increased substantially, staff have submitted extensive alternative proposals capable of delivering further savings and the university itself is saying it now has a surplus. 

Yet the University has still not ruled out compulsory redundancies.

UCU has deliberately called the first strike days to coincide with the Council meeting at which the final business case will be considered.

“We don’t want to strike, but staff will not stand by while colleagues lose their jobs and whole areas of teaching and research are dismantled unnecessarily. Council has the power to stop this. Staff have already voted that they have no confidence in its handling of FN2. When Council meets on 30 September, its members must decide whether they will finally hold senior management to account – or force staff into sustained strike action.” Nick Clare, UCU Branch President. 

UCU says the dispute can still be resolved and they are very open to talks with management to resolve the issue ahead of the new academic year. 

The union is calling on the University to rule out compulsory redundancies and the closure of full departments, protect teaching and research, and engage seriously with the alternative proposals put forward by staff.