UCU fighting against workload intensification.

In a world run by billionaires for billionaires, we need trade unions more than ever.

Join #UCU today: www.ucu.org.uk/join

London South Bank to create ‘two track’ academic workforce Staff to be divided into teaching and research roles, with new starters hired via subsidiary firm

The dismal tide accelerates, sweeping from Coventry through Sheffield Hallam to London South Bank. 1/2

Southend MPs @bayoalaba.bsky.social and @davidbsampson.bsky.social, and city council leader Daniel Cowan, calling out our VC Frances Bowen's dishonest and dismissive managed messaging 👏

Where on earth is the Office for Students. These courses have been advertised, applicants have been engaging with the advertised material.

The Consumer Protection Law as applied to #UKHE (🤢) declares that universities have to be accurate in their information from the first contact with applicants.

295 modules cut in the School of the Arts Race and Racism in Performance Performing Illness and Disability Performance and Visual Culture in South Asia Queer Borderlands Iraqi Literature in English / English Translation Transgender Perspectives and Interventions Refugee Writing Indian Cinema Slavery, Colonialism and Postcolonialism Language and Ethnicity Multilingualism and Bilingualism Cinema and Disability Intersectional Feminist Writing Reading South Asia: India, Pakistan, Bangladesh Plus cuts to Arabic, Bengali, Catalan, French, German, Japanese Mandarin Chinese and Russian! Management is cutting The research-led modules that make QMUL QMUL

Management paid nearly a quarter million to the external consultancy NOUS, whose generic 'framework' is now used to turn QMUL into a Cookie Cutter University.

These modules make QMUL. They bring students in contact with the cutting-edge research & widen the scope of academia. #UKHE

Academic staff at Coventry University are being TUPEd into subsidiary People’s Futures Ltd, listed on Companies House as an “employment agency”. This move onto inferior terms & conditions breaches the post-92 National Agreement and raises serious questions about the future of academics in HE.

DMU UCU

The latest edition of our branch news letter "Unionise" is available to read on our wordpress site. This issue features a forensic analysis of ULB expenses and also a guest consultancy report on helping to cut expenditure to save jobs:

ucudemontfort.wordpress.com

💪🥁📣PLS SHARE! @ucunorthumbria.bsky.social ON STRIKE 16, 17, 25, 26, 27 March AND 20, 21, 22, 23, 24 April. 👉👉👉25 March = NATIONAL RALLY TO PROTECT PAY AND PENSIONS 1PM at Monument in NEWCASTLE with UCU GS Jo Grady and President Elect Dyfrig Jones. All welcome.

Sheffield Hallam restricts TPS access to REF academics only Teaching staff at post-92 institution to be employed by subsidiary firm and lose right to access expensive pensions scheme

Holy crap. This is very bad.
Sheffield Hallam restricts TPS access to REF academics only www.timeshighereducation.com/news/sheffie...

📢 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.
1/4

@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.
1/2

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?...