Category: Industrial Action

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Industrial Action in July

Email sent to members on Thursday 10th July 2025

Dear Members

It was great to see you at the meeting yesterday (9/7/25). Unfortunately I could not tell you about ASOS plans or the date of a possible strike, until UCU had informed the VC. This has now happened.  Paraphrasing from the letter sent:

“The  industrial action will consist of:

* discontinuous strike action on 24 July 2025

* continuous action short of strike consisting of: 

     Not working beyond contractual obligations;

     Not covering for absent colleagues or unfilled posts;

    Not rescheduling or sharing materials from strike-affected sessions;

    Not performing voluntary or out-of-grade duties; 

    Not using personal devices for university work; 

    Not participating in graduation related activities; 

    No admin work related to REF, Course reviews, Future Nottingham, University rankings, Timetabling, Financial year end. 

Actions short of strike (as listed above) will begin on a continuous basis from 24 July 2025.

For the avoidance of doubt, this dispute will continue until such time as the dispute and any matters arising from the dispute… have been resolved to UCU’s satisfaction. In the event the dispute is not resolved to UCU’s satisfaction at the conclusion of the action identified in this letter, the union may notify you of further industrial action.”

Note, as discussed in our meeting yesterday, as a concession we will not be using ASOS for student recruitment events.       

The multiple meetings with management have made it abundantly clear that the only way to shift their position is to show our collective strength through industrial action. The power of a union lies in its unity, and we expect every member to take part. If you will be on holiday or on research leave during the strike period, we encourage you to donate to the hardship fund to support your colleagues.

We will be holding another members’ meeting shortly to discuss all of this in detail. We are preparing a set of FAQs to help members navigate Action Short of a Strike (ASOS), we will share soon. BC is planning ASOS Q&A sessions too.

We will circulate information about hardship support in due course.

And finally, we need to send a clear message to management: We will not accept compulsory redundancies.  So, join us at the rally on 21 July, and most importantly, join our collective fight by striking on 24 July, followed by ASOS.

Thanking you in advance. 

Yours

Lopa

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Our alternative to job cuts: read the UCU counterproposal

Email sent to members on Friday 4th July 2025


Dear members,

We are pleased to share our detailed counterproposal to the Future Nottingham Phase One cuts, formally delivered to university management this morning on the final day of the consultation period. Management is now legally obliged to consider this document in full before proceeding with any compulsory redundancies. A series of meetings with management is already being planned to discuss the University’s response.

Unlike the University’s proposals — driven by senior managers relying on spreadsheets and arbitrary targets, without essential granular knowledge — our counterproposal is informed by you: the staff on the front line. It reflects the realities of your work, the essential role of APM colleagues in supporting teaching, research, the needs of our students, and the long-term health of the University.

This 70-page document is the culmination of an immense amount of hard work by members of the branch committee and the redundancy working group, with input from members, lay experts, and many of our APM colleagues who have sadly been pooled during Phase 1. Thanks also to everyone who attended any of the specific chapter/business unit meetings during the consultation period as well as our sister unions.

While management must read and respond to the entire proposal, we know members are busy; we encourage you at the very least to read the executive summary, where we set out the key, practical alternatives to the University’s destructive plans.

This is a critical moment. We have just secured a mandate for industrial action, and it is important to remember that industrial action is our most powerful tool to stop job cuts. This approach has already worked at Dundee, Cardiff, and Newcastle, where compulsory redundancies were withdrawn under pressure.

We must stand together to protect jobs, defend our colleagues, and fight for the future of our university. Hopefully see you all on Wednesday 9th at 1pm for the members’ meeting.In solidarity,


Your UCU Branch Committee

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Members’ meeting next Wednesday 9th July at 1pm

Email sent to members on Wednesday 2nd July

Dear all,

I am writing to invite you to a members’ meeting next Wednesday 9th July at 1pm. You will have received the fantastic news from Lopa earlier this week that we sailed past the 50% threshold for industrial action. 63% of you voted, so thanks to all of you who did, and as always to our reps, committee members, and branch administrator for helping get the vote out once more. Thanks also to those who came to the open meetings in very large numbers, and to the Faculty Meetings for faculty specific Q and As. The successful results have been sent to the VC and already now reported in the BBC.

We are meeting with the University Team (VC, DVC, CPO et al), on the 7th of July where they will update us on the outcome of Phase 1 in relation to compulsory redundancies. We will use this members’ meeting to feed back on that and discuss our next steps in light of that outcome.

We are also close to finalising our Phase 1 ‘counterproposal’ as part of the consultation process. Thanks to everyone who has fed into this and those who have helped pull it together. It is a really impressive document that we will share with you all on Friday once we have submitted it to the University. Again, we can discuss this in more detail on the 9th.

The Zoom link for the meeting is below.

In solidarity as always

Nick (branch secretary)

UCU UoN is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

Topic: UoN UCU member meeting

Time: Jul 9, 2025 13:00 London

Join Zoom Meeting

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81876860467?pwd=v07GkuDfetb3dAANmqABSYBTjDiPBa.1

Meeting ID: 818 7686 0467

Passcode: 104007

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Industrial Action Ballot result

Email sent to members on Monday 30th June

Dear Members

The ballot results are in! (Came just before 2pm). Re: Trade dispute: failure to resolve issues regarding job security. I am delighted to let you know, a resounding majority of you voted Yes!  (72.21% said yes to IA consisting of strike action, 84.12% said Yes to Action short of a Strike action). 

We have informed the Vice -Chancellor. 

Thank you for your resounding endorsement. Thank you for caring about the huge job losses of APM colleagues in Phase 1 and what may follow for academics and APM in Phase 2. 

More information to follow  on how,, what modes we take, and the VC’s reactions soon.

I just had to let you know! Enjoy the rest of this very hot summer’s day. 

Full solidarity and grateful thanks,

Lopa

On behalf of committee and Reps.

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Redundancy campaign blog: discussions with management

Email sent to members on Monday 19th June 2025

As part of our fight to protect jobs at the University of Nottingham, we will be sending regular emails outlining various aspects of our campaign. Today, we focus on current discussions between UCU and UoN management over Future Nottingham. Remember, further details about our campaign can be found on our webpages, via the redundancy campaign tab.

Chaos reigns supreme

Over recent weeks and months, members of the UCU committee have been in regular meetings with management over Future Nottingham cuts and restructuring including high-level general meetings as well as more focused meetings on different Chapters of current APM restructuring and redundancies. 

Management argues that it is committed to sharing information, which in turn would allow UCU to work on alternative proposals. In practice, however, information is often incomplete, incorrect or simply not provided. This reflects the generally chaotic situation with redundancies at the moment. Numerous colleagues are being told that they are at risk of redundancy, then they are told that they are safe, before being put yet again into another redundancy pool. 

Despite insufficient information, the committee is working hard on developing an alternative proposal to management’s Future Nottingham. We are clear, we will not accept compulsory redundancies. 

Several developments have become clear in our meetings with management. First, despite the current chaos around redundancy pools, management pushes on regardless with restructuring. This also includes first discussions and a timeline about future redundancies of academics and technicians in the Autumn. As we have always maintained, nobody is safe!

Second, the big elephant in the room is management’s future savings target. Their objective is to generate a surplus of 5 per cent, i.e. £40m in 2025/2026. Historically, however, UoN surplus was somewhere in the area between 3 and 4 per cent in normal years. Increasing this to 5 per cent already puts undue pressure on finances in times of general uncertainty. Moreover, does this indicate that management simply continues with its faulty financial strategy? As we argued in our Alternative Financial Strategy 2.0, imposing cuts on essential activities to generate large surpluses for infrastructure investment has resulted in regular financial crises in the past. When is management going to learn the lessons from past mistakes?

To be clear, the UCU committee will continue to resist restructuring and job cuts in our meetings with management. What has become, however, abundantly clear is that words alone will not be enough to make management see sense. Only sustained and hard-hitting industrial action will ultimately ensure a better future for staff, students and UoN as a whole. Make sure that you vote in the current ballot!