Reduce Your UCU Subscription Cost by Claiming Tax Relief
As we’ve entered a new tax year, it’s a great time to remind #UCU members that you may be able to reduce the cost of your union subscription by claiming tax relief from HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC). Click the link for more details.
@ulsteruni.bsky.social - Announces intention to make 450 colleagues redundant
University decimated 🤬😡
@caoimhearchibald.bsky.social @bphillipsonmp.bsky.social
Figure 1 of this Hepi piece lists 27 'Approaches to HE financial sustainability', including outsourcing, new procurement frameworks, estate sales, pay reductions, redundancy.
Not one suggests open, frank & structured collaboration with staff, or better governance. Utterly inadequate to the task.
SHU UCU report into the human impact of the University's death spiral
SHU's £26m cuts are devastating staff wellbeing: job losses, pension & contract changes & up to 33% of Senior Lecturers facing redundancy. Followed by 1000 losses in 2024-25, morale is collapsing. Read anonymised member feedback on the human cost. ucuhallam.org/7ues
This week over 400 members of the University community met at a joint union meeting to consider the motion below.
97% voted that they had no confidence in VC Frances Bowen and her leadership team.
Staff demand accountability.
www.ucu.essex.ac.uk/2026/04/17/v...
UK university leaders will always suck-up to authoritarians, at home or abroad, if they think they will benefit.
We London Met UCU branch are on strike this Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday 9 am onwards - Tues-Weds at North Thursday at City Goulston street defending jobs and student education. Join us for teach outs,creativity and solid resistance ❤️#savelondonmet
The state of British academia: my partner was made redundant from one uni after 14 (14)yrs on fixed-term contracts, & has now begun a short-term fixed contract at another that is threatening to put all (all) its academic staff at risk of redundancy in a “fire & rehire” www.ucu.org.uk/article/1445...
🚨 1 in 4 staff at Goldsmiths to be axed.
All while senior management get eye-watering pay rises and £16m is spent on consultants and lawyers.
This is the reality of Higher Education in the UK.
Our members have voted for industrial action, support them.
www.ucu.org.uk/article/1447...
The closure of Southend rips away jobs, education and the lifeblood of local businesses.
The rationale? Barely fills an A4 page.
In Westminister Yesterday MPs & union reps handed a vote of no confidence in Bowen to education minister Jacqui Smith.
Please join us. From the 15th April. 9-10 am. All solidarity
'The UK’s two richest universities already attract a disproportionate share of educational philanthropy....overall, huge disparities in fundraising serve to increase the gap that already divides the oldest and most selective institutions from the rest'.
“In 2023, UK universities spent a total of £500m on education agents – but there is very little oversight of how these agents operate.”
Important read from The Guardian.
www.theguardian.com/education/ng...
Brilliant work by USIC UCU in fighting against another completely unacceptable pay freeze by management.
An attack on one of us is an attack on all of us!
Solidarity to our colleagues @hwucu.bsky.social and @ucuedinburgh.bsky.social 🔥🔥🔥
People at rally
People at rally
People at rally
People at rally
Big shout to UCU members who showed up.
This is what our union stands for. Education builds cohesion and educators stand for unity, not division.
#UCU members #USIC have been taking action over pay and other T&Cs. Here's what the branch secretary has to say about the dispute @ucu.org.uk
The Certification Officer has issued his decision in Blake & McGaughey v UCU. My initial response is here: vickyblakeucu.uk/2026/03/31/t...
I urge members to read the full ruling rather than relying on the summary emailed to all members by HQ today. assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/69cbcb...
Brilliant work by USIC UCU in fighting against another completely unacceptable pay freeze by management.
An attack on one of us is an attack on all of us!
Solidarity to our colleagues @hwucu.bsky.social and @ucuedinburgh.bsky.social 🔥🔥🔥
The brilliant @hwucu.bsky.social showing us all how it is done!
who can think of a lot more useful use of that £360m for the sector? Answers on a postcard.
Can we have one of these inquiries here, please? #UKHE is also leading a stupid amount of money from the public institutions to these leechy private businesses. And yes, the lack of accountability is a key part of the issue about that.
Map of Britain made from early 20th century Ordnance Survey maps. It includes pins which link to digitised documents and links to a timeline.
New 1926 General Strike map online!
Using early 20th century Ordnance Survey maps, the online resource shows strike events (through archive sources) in their contemporary landscape.
Explore the map, digitised sources and more at warwick.ac.uk/services/lib...
When every university follows the same bad advice from the same consultants with agendas separate from their institutional mission ... they lose their identity as well as their independence.
They lose the ability to play to their own strengths when the consultants' agenda causes systemic failure.
A very easy step the Secretary of State could make is to shut down the use of consultancies in #UKHE. It leaks SO MUCH money out of the (public) sector to for-profit firms, is creating a truly dangerous monoculture, and is so seemingly obscure none outside the sector will be pissed off.
The dismal tide accelerates, sweeping from Coventry through Sheffield Hallam to London South Bank. 1/2
What is needed now is not managed messaging but honesty.”
Relieved to see politicians recognise & call out the terrible managerial practices so many have been gaslit in accepting. No, behind-closed-doors tickbox conversations aren’t consultation. No, evidence-free decisions aren’t acceptable. #UKHE
