Fight for education jobs in Leeds intensifies

The event is being organised by members of UCU who are furious at plans by the University of Leeds to make 100 staff redundant.
 
Under the proposals 60 jobs in the Faculty of Biological Sciences will be axed, along with 40 jobs in the school of healthcare. The union said the plans fly in the face of local and national priorities and will affect training for nurses and other essential NHS staff, as well as vital research in to viruses.
 
Last month Leeds Metropolitan University said that it too would be slashing posts despite a rise in student applications.
 
UCU branch chair at Leeds University, Ann Blair, said: 'This meeting is a clarion call for all staff working in schools, further and higher education. It is crazy for institutions to be looking to make cuts to education and training at a time when people are looking to re-skill and seek new employment.

'These redundancies cannot be carried out without significant effects on the well-being of the staff who remain or the quality of the education they provide. The people of Leeds need frontline staff being trained in the School of Healthcare for the NHS, and they need the research into diseases carried out in Biological Sciences.

'The University of Leeds has aspirations to world class status - we reject the idea that these job losses can form any part of a strategy designed to achieve this.'