Teesside University bans UCU from meeting about professors' futures

UCU has been banned from attending a meeting at Teesside University at 12:30pm today (Friday) to discuss the fate of 27 professors at the university who were controversially told earlier this month that they would all have to reapply for their jobs.

Most of the 27 professors are members of UCU, yet the union has been told it is not allowed to join the meeting and that the professors can instead send two representatives. The union said the decision to deny the staff union representation in talks about their futures flew in the face of fairness and decent practice.

UCU said the university is rightly proud about the internationally recognised research staff carry out and warned forcing staff to reapply for their jobs was likely to seriously damage the university's reputation.

Just yesterday, more than 750 academics signed an open letter condemning the university's plans, calling the timing "bizarrely thoughtless and ignorant to the annual work-cycle in academia".

UCU regional official, Jon Bryan, said: 'Banning UCU from a meeting about the future of 27 professors flies in the face of fairness and decent practice and risks doing serious damage to the university's reputation.

'The timing of the announcement at the end of the summer term looked cynical and the university should now halt plans that have already been widely condemned in the strongest terms by academics.'