Fighting fund banner

 

UCU pledges to fight Cardiff University job cuts

24 April 2009

UCU has vowed to fight plans for 140 redundancies at the Centre for Lifelong Learning at Cardiff University. The union said the university could not hide behind claims that implementing a nationally agreed pay deal would result in axing staff.

UCU announced yesterday (23 April) that it is balloting members across the UK over job cuts. The union said that the employers' refusal to act as the crisis over jobs deteriorated had forced it to ballot for industrial action.
 
UCU had given the Universities and Colleges Employers Association (UCEA) until Monday 20 April to provide a credible response to its demands for the need for a national agreement to avoid redundancies in the UK's universities. It said today that industrial action was far from inevitable and it hoped that the employers would now appreciate the gravity of the situation and stop dragging their feet.
 
The union's fears over job cuts had been heightened when UCEA told the union it expected around 100 institutions to make collective redundancies. By Monday's deadline the union had only received a reply from UCEA's chair, Bill Wakeham, that suggested the union should be patient over job losses in the sector. The union said today that the situation at Cardiff is an example of why an urgent agreement is needed if unnecessary redundancies have any chance of being avoided.
 
Ballot papers will begin to be issued on 1 May and the ballot will conclude on 22 May.
 
Todd Bailey, vice-president of UCU at Cardiff University, said: 'We have campaigned for years to get Cardiff University to stop its unlawful discrimination against part-time hourly paid staff. Now they seek to dismiss 140 staff to fund equal pay, and it is actually women will bear the brunt of the cuts because two-thirds of the courses in the Centre for Lifelong Learning are taught by women.
 
'We have been asking for months to discuss ways of achieving equal pay without compulsory redundancies and the university has refused. Now they propose the shortest consultation period the law will allow before they start dismissing people. This is a terrible way to treat people. We are now formally in dispute with the university, and have sought urgent negotiations to remove the threat of redundancies before the dispute escalates.'

Last updated: 11 December 2015

Comments