The Friday email: 18 July 2025

Higher education pay and conditions consultative ballot: online Q&A

UCU will soon be launching a consultative ballot over the full and final offer from Universities and Colleges Employers Association (UCEA). The elected representatives on UCU's higher education committee (HEC) is recommending that members vote to reject the offer, and vote yes to participating in industrial action.

UCU is holding an online meeting on UCEA's final offer, which will take place on Friday 25 July (14:00-15:30). This will be an opportunity to hear from the elected HE negotiators about the offer itself and ask any questions you may have. UCU is urging all HE members to register here to join the online Q&A (registration closes at 11:00 on Friday 25 July).

Questions will be taken in the briefing itself, and you can also submit questions in advance. All UCU higher education members are entitled to attend this meeting, and those who are from branches that are participating in the 2025/26 JNCHES negotiating round in particular are strongly encouraged to attend.

UCU will be in touch shortly with further details about the consultative ballot, including launch date and closing date. You can follow updates on the 2025/26 higher education negotiations here.

Save Adult Education: watch the online launch, sign our petition, email your MP

Save Adult Education is a new campaign from UCU for members in adult and community education (ACE). Our aim is to reverse cuts to the Adult Skills Fund, promote social cohesion, defend members' jobs, and champion professional respect. You can:

• watch our campaign launch online meeting on YouTube, featuring the voices of UCU reps at City Lit, South and City College Birmingham, and Redbridge Institute of Adult Education
• sign and share the Save Adult Education petition calling on the Labour government to reverse its devastating decision to slash funding for adult and community education
• use UCU's Email your MP tool to demand the UK government reverse the cuts to adult education in England and properly invest in adult skills.

Prison education: tell your MP to address the crisis

Prison education provision in England is also in a perilous state. We are asking all UCU members to email your MP and request that they sign EDM (early day motion) 1542 on prison education insourcing, which calls on the UK government to explore the options for insourcing all such provision under an effectively resourced, publicly owned national prison education system.

We have provided an Email your MP tool here. Please remember to include your full name and postal address at the end of the email as MPs may reject messages missing this information.

Stop the Cuts! Disputes at UK universities

Liverpool Hope University intends to axe 39 staff. The threatened cuts will fall on the faculties of education and social sciences, creative arts and humanities, and human and digital sciences. Management claims it needs to make the cuts due to its own predicted deficit, with staff set to go as soon as November 2025. Last week, Liverpool Hope University UCU members have voted for industrial action: on a turnout of 69%, 85% voted for strike action and 94% voted for action short of a strike (ASOS).

University of Bradford UCU members will resume striking from Monday 21 July over plans to slash hundreds of jobs and close multiple courses. You can click here for the full strike schedule. The dispute is over £16m of cuts that management wants to force through. The university has so far failed to set out precisely where all the cuts will fall, but 230 professional service staff and a further 230 or so academics are already at risk.

University of the West of Scotland UCU opened an industrial action ballot this week in a dispute over job cuts and university senior management's refusal to rule out compulsory redundancies. The ballot will run until 14 August; click here for the full story.

University of Nottingham staff are facing mass redundancies. During the first phase of restructuring, at least 258 professional services staff are under threat. The second phase from September onwards is likely to involve a similar number of academic staff. Notice of industrial action for Thursday 24 July and action short of a strike (ASOS) to begin the same day has been issued.

Sheffield Hallam University (SHU) has outlined plans to cut 300 staff (including 150 academic staff) to plug a £28m budget deficit forecast for 2025/26. This is in addition to the loss of 500 staff (10% of the workforce) in 2024/25. Management have refused to rule out compulsory redundancies and have communicated plans to implement a university-wide restructure. SHU UCU branch have issued a trade dispute to the university and have been undertaking an indicative strike ballot.

University of Leicester will be balloting imminently in a dispute over job cuts and redundancies. More information will be available soon.

Please support many other branches, such as universities of Bournemouth, Bristol, Derby, Dundee, Edinburgh, Lancaster, Lincoln, and Plymouth where UCU members in higher education are also defending jobs and education.

FE colleges ballots and action: updates

An overwhelming 94% of staff at Warrington and Vale Royal College backed strike action in a ballot with a turnout of 75%. The vote reflects staff anger at having their pay frozen for almost a year(from 1 August 2024). Warrington is now the only college in North West England that has refused to make a pay offer this academic year.

UCU members at INTO Manchester, a private college for international students, have also overwhelmingly voted to strike over low pay. 97% of UCU members voted to take strike action in a ballot that saw a turnout of 83%. The dispute is over a paltry 2% pay award. INTO Manchester charges international students up to £38k per year; it made over £20m last year and paid out £15m in dividends.

UCU members working at the Witton Park campus of Myerscough College in Blackburn were shocked when management announced proposals in May to close the centre, giving them less than three months' notice. The campaign against campus closure has already won the support of the local council and the local MP; UCU members are encouraged to sign and share the petition.

Adult education: rallying against job cuts at Working Men's College and Redbridge Institute

Staff, students and supporters of the historic Working Men's College (WMC) in Camden held a rally in protest against sweeping cuts to staffing and the college's vital adult education offer. Nineteen jobs have been placed at risk just weeks before the start of the new academic year as a direct consequence of funding cuts. 

Staff and students also rallied last week to defend jobs at Redbridge Institute of Adult Education (RIAE) in protest against targeted cuts to staffing and the college's vital adult education offer. Up to a dozen staff are threatened with the sack, with concerns raised that management are targeting individuals under cover of a shambolic consultation process and a bogus business case. The same employer tried to fire and rehire its staff 18 months ago. UCU has declared a dispute and is calling on Redbridge Labour Council to urgently intervene to force RIAE back to the negotiating table.

You can see some more photos from both rallies on UCU's Save Adult Education page.

Academic boycott of Brunel University over mass redundancies

UCU declared an academic boycott of Brunel University London in response to the institution's continued pursuit of mass redundancies. The boycott began on Tuesday 15 April; Brunel UCU demands that the university withdraws the threat of compulsory redundancies, provides transparent financial information, enters collective conciliation talks through Acas, and reinstates those already involuntarily dismissed.

UCU is asking members, supporters, and the international academic community to observe the boycott by:

• not applying for jobs at Brunel
• not attending or organising academic or other conferences at the university
• not giving talks or lectures at Brunel
• not accepting visiting appointments at Brunel
• not contributing to academic journals edited at or produced by the university
• not taking on roles as external examiners for Brunel's taught courses.

For the latest developments please see the Brunel University UCU branch website.

UCU webinar on HE governance, 17 September

UCU is holding a webinar on Zoom entitled 'HE governance in a time of crisis' on Wednesday 17 September (13:00-14:15). You can register here.

The current funding and jobs crisis in UK higher education is also a failure of HE governance. Come and hear from academic experts and union activists about the nature of the governance problems in higher education and discuss union responses, including internationally. Speakers include: Professor Steve Jones (University of Manchester); Dr Sophia Woodman (University of Edinburgh); Dr Sinéad Kennedy (Maynooth University).

International conference on academic freedom, 15 October

UCU, with the support of Education International (EI), is hosting an international conference on academic freedom on Wednesday 15 October. The conference will hear from international trade unions and experts about global and national challenges to academic freedom and will discuss how to build effective union responses, including in the UK. The confirmed keynote speaker is Robert Quinn, executive director of the Scholars at Risk Network.

The conference will be run as a hybrid event. UCU members can either attend online or in person at the Hamilton House Meeting Rooms, Mabledon Place, London WC1H 9BD. We expect spaces for the in-person event to fill up quickly so register as soon as possible to secure your place; the conference is free to attend.

USS pensions webinar: Conditional Indexation interim report, 4 August 

Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS) has recently released its Conditional Indexation interim report. You can read UCU's update here.

To provide more information to USS scheme members, a webinar on Conditional Indexation will take place on Monday 4 August on Zoom. Click here to register. The webinar will discuss what Conditional Indexation is and why scheme members should be sceptical regarding its introduction. This webinar is open to all USS scheme members including UCU staff.

Artificial Intelligence report

As part of UCU's Future of Work in Post-16 Education project, the working group undertook a survey of members over summer and autumn 2024 to understand members' experiences of AI systems and the impact on their working lives. Thanks to everyone who completed the survey. The survey report has been released and can be read here.

Green Gap report

This week UCU launched a report that must act as a wake up call if the UK is to deliver the workforce required for a successful transition to a net-zero economy by 2030.

The Green Gap report, commissioned by UCU and carried out by Students Organising for Sustainability UK (SOS-UK), identifies significant challenges across the skills system, particularly within the further education sector, and concludes that the UK is not currently on track to meet its green skills targets. The report is part of UCU's ongoing commitment to green skills and makes clear recommendations to address the current gaps in skills provision. 

National march for Palestine, 19 July

Join UCU members and general secretary Jo Grady this Saturday 19 July, on the national march for Palestine. The trade union bloc will assemble at 12 noon, Cleopatra's Needle, Victoria Embankment, London WC2N.

Medical education under scholasticide

'Medical education under scholasticide', a webinar in Fobzu's Education, Occupation & Liberation series organised in collaboration with UCU, will take place on Tuesday 22 July (17:00-18:00). This webinar will feature the voices of Gaza's medical educators and students as they reflect on their experiences of teaching, learning, and serving under scholasticide. It will explore how medical education endures despite the systematic targeting of universities and healthcare facilities, and examine the role of international academic solidarity in defending the right to education for Palestinians.

Support firefighters and rescue workers in Ukraine

Since May 2024, UK trade union and labour movement activists have been raising funds to support workers in the 10th Rescue Squad, based in Donetsk Oblast in eastern Ukraine, near the frontline. In response to a new request from the Independent Trade Union of Mineworkers of Ukraine (NGPU), the Ukraine Solidarity Campaign are now raising funds for drones to help protect the Squad's teams from attack and aid their firefighting and rescue work. Click here for further information about the latest Crowdfunder.

UCU's LGBT+ work

UCU is organising for presence at a number of LGBT+ Pride 2025 events. If you are interested in volunteering to help, please complete this form.

In addition, Northern Pride takes place in Newcastle next weekend. TUC is organising a Northern Pride union brunch and pre-march meeting on Saturday 19 July. This is the perfect opportunity to highlight the role trade unions play in achieving positive change for LGBT+ communities and show just how much support there is within the movement.

Officer resignation: David Hunter

UCU president elect David Hunter resigns from his role on 31 July 2025. David resigns for health reasons. We wish him all the best and thank him for his service to the union. Further information about the process for filling an officer casual vacancy will follow in due course.