Edinburgh University three-day strike over cuts, ongoing job losses and threat of compulsory redundancies

University and College Union (UCU) Scotland members at the University of Edinburgh today (Monday) begin three days of strike action in a dispute over £140million cuts and job losses, including the possible use of compulsory redundancies.

As well as striking today, UCU members will also be on strike on Tuesday 18 and Wednesday 19 November.  Future action could also see a marking and assessment boycott which would see members refuse to take part in marking and assessment duties, including work such as exam invigilation and the processing of marks, and would be an escalation of this dispute.

Members will be picketing university buildings across the campus from 9:00am to 12:00 noon each day.  On Wednesday 19 November there will be a rally held outside the Scottish Parliament starting at 1pm.  The union is asking MSPs to join them at the rally and to call on the university to commit to not using compulsory redundancies.  With elections to the Scottish Parliament less than six months away, the UCU branch at Edinburgh university, with over 2,500 members living in and around the city, said that the votes of members and students concerned over job cuts would play a critical part in next year's election.

The strikes follow on from a re-ballot where 86% of those voting backed strike action with a 60% turnout.  The re-ballot was required because trade union legislation means that ballots need to be refreshed after six months.  The union said that the strength of vote in the face of management intransigence showed the anger at senior management's plans to make cuts and slash staff numbers.  The union estimates that there could be around 1,800 jobs lost. Hundreds of jobs have already gone in 'hidden redundancies', with staff on fixed-term contracts not having their contracts renewed as would ordinarily have happened.  Hourly paid staff have also had their paid hours reduced making life and financial planning for them and their families increasingly difficult, and also cutting employment opportunities for postgraduate research students and the university's breadth of educational offer. 

The union is calling on senior managers at the university to finally rule out the use of compulsory redundancies saying that, nine months after first announcing cuts it was only fair that senior managers lift the uncertainly on staff of having to go to work each day without knowing if they have a long-term future. 

Sophia Woodman, Edinburgh University UCU branch president, said: "I'm angry that, nine months on from announcing these cuts, staff are no clearer to knowing their future and senior managers' plans.  I'm angry that staff had to be re-balloted over taking industrial action in a dispute that should have ended months ago and that that we are once again having to take strike action because senior managers have refused to meaningfully engage to end this dispute.  With hundreds of staff having already left, some pushed out, and thousands more worried for their future, university senior management need to finally do the right thing; commit to no compulsory redundancies; and accept the union's open offer of meaningful talks with a view to ending the dispute.  Unless and until they do, the threat of more strikes, more disruption and a marking and assessment boycott will hang over the university.  Students know exactly who's to blame.

"It's also time for MSPs and politicians across Edinburgh and the Lothians to take a keener interest in what's happening at the university, and for them to impress on the principal that threatening staff with compulsory redundancies is wrong and unbecoming in an institution which is receiving more than £67million from the Scottish Government in teaching grants this academic year alone."

Jo Grady, UCU general secretary, said: "Nine months after announcing huge cuts at Edinburgh, senior management still can't tell their workforce whether or not they need to use compulsory redundancies. If Peter Mathieson, on £400,000 plus a year, can't set out a way forward that doesn't involve decimating the university and its staff, and if senior managers aren't willing engage with the union to resolve this dispute, then we need government and politicians to intervene."