Strikes on today at Edinburgh University

All UCU members at the university are striking today and on Wednesday 1 April.  Some members will also be taking strike action on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday depending if they have teaching or administrative duties on those days. 

There will be a joint rally, along with Heriot-Watt UCU branch, at 12noon on Wednesday 1 April at Bristo Square.  Speakers include STUC General Secretary Roz Foyer, from Edinburgh and Heriot-Watt UCU branches, other campus unions and students.

The strikes take place after a deal brokered at the end of last year fell through with the union saying that management had failed to keep promises to engage in meaningful consultation. Today's strike is the tenth days of industrial action taken so far in the dispute. Management at the university have so far not put a number on how many staff they want to cut but the union has estimated that around 1,800 jobs will be lost and that hundreds of jobs have already gone in 'hidden redundancies'.  They include staff with fixed term contracts not being renewed as would normally happen and hourly paid staff having their hours reduced. 

UCU Edinburgh branch president, Sophia Woodman, said: 'This is a really busy time at Edinburgh university and the last thing staff want to be doing is striking.  Sadly, the decision by management to keep UCU from attending critical meetings and not to share key financial information means that we've had to take this action.

'For management to have pulled back from the commitments they gave in December is deeply disappointing.  We want to try and find alternative savings and save jobs but we need the books to be opened and meaningful engagement from the principal and senior management.  The last annual report showed that the university's finances are healthy and a year after announcing the biggest ever cuts to be made to a university in Scotland, they've failed to make the case for the level of cuts and job losses they're proposing.  Its time now for management to end the undue stress and worry they've put staff and students through and to engage in a genuinely meaningful way to find a way forward to end this dispute.'

UCU general secretary, Jo Grady, said: 'Staff will be out on picket lines today and throughout the week to oppose these cuts at Edinburgh. Well over a year from first announcing plans to make such huge savings and cut jobs, including by using compulsory redundancies, I'm calling on Professor Sir Peter Mathieson to recommit to working with us to find a solution to this dispute that saves jobs and rules out compulsory redundancies.'