Coventry University staff & students hold alternative open day in protest against fire & rehire cuts as petition hits 4,000 signatures

The alternative open day will be held in the Yard from 10am to 1.30pm on Saturday 15 March and will showcase the best of Coventry University. Speakers include Zarah Sultana MP, UCU General Secretary Jo Grady and President Maxine Looby, Coventry poet laureate John Bernard, university students and staff, as well local artists and activists.

Coventry UCU has also launched a petition demanding Latham is removed from his government appointed non-executive post on the board of the department for business and trade, which now has close to 4,000 signatures and can be signed here 

The union believes he should resign from all his additional roles with the Singaporean government, an Australian software company TechnologyOne, and the NHS England workforce training and education committee, so he can focus on the crisis at Coventry.

Latham is overseeing several rounds of redundancies, consultations and restructures which will result in over a hundred job-losses. Meanwhile, he is firing and rehiring workers who stay, stopping their career progression and tearing up their terms and conditions. Despite overseeing a £100m deficit, Latham took home an £80k bonus in 2022-23 on top of his salary. His resulting total pay package reached over £400k that year.

UCU said Coventry is being driven towards a business-model centred around high staff-turnover, poor pay and insecure contracts. The union instead wants student experience, education, and teaching prioritised above all else.

Coventry branch president Sharon McGuire said: 'Coventry University would cease to exist without its community of staff and students and we are coming together on Saturday 15 March to demand the vice-chancellor listens to us and halts his vicious programme of cuts. Neither the quality of teaching nor of education is being factored into his increasingly dystopian and commercialised model of higher education. This failure to incentivise and keep experienced lecturers can only lead to a brain drain and contribute to the widening gap in the quality of education between post-92 and red brick institutions - disproportionately affecting students from working class backgrounds.'

UCU general secretary Jo Grady said: 'Latham needs to stop rewarding himself for failure, return his £80k bonus and give up all his plum roles with governments and business so he can focus on working with us to fix this crisis. The Labour Government also needs to take its stance on fire and rehire seriously and remove this rogue boss from its business and trade board.'