Category: UCU

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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.

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Vote of No Confidence in University of Nottingham Council

The following motion was overwhelmingly passed at our members’ meeting on Tuesday 21st July, with 93% voting in favour. This is a joint motion tabled by the UCU, Unite, and UNISON branches at the University of Nottingham.

The University of Nottingham UCU/Unite/Unison branches note that Council has materially failed to discharge its duties as set out in Section 6 (The Council) and Section 7 (Powers of the Council) of the University Statutes, and Ordinance X (Powers of Council), in relation to its decision to support the Future Nottingham Phase 2 (FN2) restructuring of the University.  Specifically, Council displayed:

1. Failure to Discharge Responsibility for the Conduct and Activities of the University:
Under Statute Section 7, 1, Council “shall be responsible for the conduct and activities of the University.” The Council’s decision to approve FN2 draft business case without first securing the complete data necessary to assess its impact on student recruitment, teaching quality, and research output constitutes a failure to exercise responsible stewardship over the University’s core activities. Proceeding without an evidence base capable of demonstrating that no significant harm would result is inconsistent with this foundational duty.

2. Disregard for Senate and Failure to Exercise Oversight Powers Appropriately:
Ordinance X empowers Council “to review amend refer back control or disallow any act of the Senate required under these Statutes to be reported to the Council and to give directions thereon to the Senate”. This provision presupposes engagement with Senate’s considered position. Senate, as the University’s principal academic body, did not support the restructuring. Rather than treating Senate’s non-support as a material concern warranting further scrutiny, Council overrode it. This approach inverts the purpose of Council’s oversight function, which exists to safeguard institutional integrity, not to circumvent academic judgement.

3. Failure to Require Adequate Reporting on Teaching and Research:
Ordinance X expressly provides that Council shall “receive and consider reports on teaching and the welfare and development of students” and shall “promote and make provision for research within the University and require reports from time to time on such research.” Council approved FN2 despite the absence of complete data addressing its potential impact on teaching, student welfare, and research. This represents a failure to exercise the Council’s own reporting and oversight powers before taking a consequential decision.

4. Exposure of the University to Significant Reputational Damage:
Statute Section 7, 1 places overall responsibility for the University’s conduct and activities on Council. Council is empowered (Ordinance X) to govern, manage and regulate “all affairs whatsoever of the University.” A major restructuring that risks negative impact on student recruitment, teaching quality, and research output carries the direct potential for reputational harm to the University’s standing, rankings, and long-term sustainability. By proceeding without the data required to exclude such risks, Council has acted in a manner that exposes the institution to foreseeable and avoidable damage.

All three Campus Unions branches note:

      • The appointment of Michael Queen as our new Chair of Council and call on the University to do everything in its power to support the new Chair, ensure he fulfils his duties independently, impartially, without compromise and in full compliance with the Nolan Principles, especially given his prior relationship with PA Consultancy.

All three Campus Union branches believe:

      • That Council has ratified the draft Business Case without due diligence to university processes and against the overwhelming vote of Senate
      • That Council has ratified the draft Business Case without access to the necessary data needed to make such an important decision (see list above)
      • That Council is not fulfilling its governance duties with due diligence and in robust and transparent ways

As a result of Council’s actions, the combined unions can no longer sustain any confidence in the university Council and call on all those who supported the Future Nottingham 2 business case to resign in order that they can be replaced by individuals who genuinely have the best interests of the university at heart and can perform their duties competently.

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Motion: Requisition for a Special Higher Education Sector Conference on the SoS Campaign and Electronic Balloting

The following motion was passed with a majority of 93% at the members’ meeting on Monday 15th June 2026.

This branch notes:

    1. The ongoing crisis in higher education and UCU’s lack of a national response.
    2. Rule 16.11 of the UCU Rules permits the convening of a Special Sector Conference upon receipt of requisitions from quorate general meetings in 20 branches from separate institutions within the sector, provided the intended business is specified.
    3. HE14, committing UCU to pursue a dispute with the Secretary of State for Education over Higher Education funding (SoS Campaign), based on legal advice establishing the viability of such a dispute.
    4. The National Education Union (NEU) has announced plans to launch a ballot over school funding in October to prevent redundancies and rises in workload.
    5. There are no plans for UCU to allow electronic balloting for industrial action after it is introduced under the Employment Rights Act in August 2026.

This branch believes:

    1. The SoS Campaign is necessary to defend jobs, pay, conditions, and the future of public higher education.
    2. Coordinating with other unions in education is key to winning this campaign.
    3. The failure to progress the SoS Campaign highlights serious democratic problems within UCU.
    4. UCU needs to prepare for the introduction of electronic balloting to coordinate with the NEU timeline and organise effective local disputes going forward.
    5. The union requires a democratic, member-led process to debate and determine the next steps in the SoS campaign and the introduction of electronic balloting.

This branch resolves:

    1. To requisition, under Rule 16.11, a Special Higher Education Sector Conference on the specific business of:
      1. Opening the dispute and progressing the SoS Campaign.
      2. Coordinating campaigning and industrial strategy with other education unions, including the NEU.
      3. Developing a democratic process for electronic balloting for industrial action, both in the SoS Campaign and other disputes.
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Memories of a local MAB!

Email sent to members on Monday 11th May 2026

As part of our campaign to defend jobs and working conditions at the University of Nottingham, we will be sending regular emails, authored by different UCU members, examining key elements of management’s restructuring plans. Today we look back at our victory in the local Marking and Assessment Boycott (MAB) in 2022. Feel free to share this post with non-UCU members in your area.

Memories of a local MAB

It was spring half term. As usual, we were in Cornwall, at the Valley Caravan Park in Polzeath. We go there every year. If you haven’t been you should. It’s a surfers’ paradise.

On this occasion I left my young family playing on the beach and headed back to the caravan. I had a crunch meeting with management. We were a few weeks into a Marking and Assessment Boycott (MAB) and management was desperate to draw it to a close.

Representing UCU was me, Lopa and the legendary Agnes. Lopa played good cop, I played bad. Agnes was just Agnes. She never stood for any crap but at the same time, she had an uncanny ability to win over management. We miss her.

Representing the other side was the then registrar, the CFO and the head of HR. All of them have since left – some under a cloud following the fiasco that was the purchase of castle meadow campus.

This was the MAB of 2022. A local affair where everyone in the call had agency. As representatives of the local UCU branch, we had the power to return to our members and call off the action. As the representatives of university management, the trio on the other side had the power to deliver on our demands.

This changed everything. Although one member of the managerial team entered the meeting all bullish and macho, dismissing our requests as impossible, he was soon sidelined by the other two, more serious operators.  They were ready to deal. They saw that the MAB was causing chaos – that the students were up in arms – and they knew they could do something about it. They could talk to UCU – to me, Lopa, and Agnes – and see what they could do to bring it to an end.

We had the upper hand right from the start. We had the power given to us by you, the members who were taking action.  In the end, it was no surprise that we secured a resounding victory. Management agreed to a package of measures across the board: full transparency on gender and ethnicity pay gaps alongside a jointly developed action plan to reduce them; steps to tackle casualisation, including restricting the use of temp agencies and rolling out the Graduate Teaching Assistant model; a pay uplift for colleagues at the top of grades 4–6; agreed principles on pensions to ensure that any future improvements would benefit members rather than reduce employer contributions; and joint work to bring workloads down to manageable levels through more realistic modelling and  proper review of staff–student ratios. Most, if not all, of these measures have held up over the last four years.

When we finally put this deal to members, I was on a day trip to Padstow, sharing details about the pension deal with members via zoom from the harbour, surrounded by day trippers eating cream teas or fish and chips. My kids waited patiently with nets in the water, hoping to catch a crab. The members voted overwhelmingly for the deal we had secured. UCU Nottingham had won.

This was all possible because it was a parochial affair, just as it is now.  The coming MAB will hurt management and they will know that they are responsible for stopping it. They won’t be able to hide behind national negotiators. This is their problem – no one else’s. And if they want to fix it, they know what they need to do.

Commit to no compulsory redundancies.

Protect staff.

Protect the future of the university

            On behalf of the UoN UCU branch committee

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Statement in support of TUFF mobilisation 16th May

The Branch Committee of University of Nottingham UCU is extremely disturbed and concerned at the far-right rally called in central London on 16th May by Tommy Robinson, even more so as  the last rally of this type attracted between 100,000 and 150,000. Far-right mobilisation has increased across the United Kingdom over the past two years, including in Nottingham. Recently a coalition of grass-roots organisations managed to force the far-right out of Nottingham city centre on Sunday 26th April. However, the far-right are mobilising in Market Square under the banner of Flagmen of Derby, this Sunday 10th May from 11am.

We note that a group of rank-and-file trade unionists organised under the banner of Trade Unions Fighting the Far Right network (TUFF), have called for a mobilisation against Tommy Robinson on the 16th of May. We believe that the far-right cannot be allowed to march through London, or any city unopposed. 

Therefore, we back the TUFF call for a trade union counter presence to Tommy Robinson, and encourage members to attend, and we hope to send members of our branch committee. If members do plan to attend, please contact the branch so that we can coordinate.