Month: June 2022
HudUCU News: Stephen Fry supports “brilliant linguistics department”
Some news of interest to our members here in Huddersfield and UCU supporters everywhere
The story which continues to dominate the Huddersfield UCU news this week is the threat of 37 redundancies in Arts & Humanities.
The support for our campaign this week received a massive boost from celebrity Stephen Fry.
The petition to save linguistics has exceeded 3,376 signatures. Sign the petition here
Please don’t forget to sign all the petitions for departments under threat here
Students from Huddersfield university have shown incredible support, and started their own social media campaign. Please follow @SaveHudAH
And finally, other news which may be of interest to members from UCU central …
- Overwhelming vote for strike action over low pay at Hugh Baird College UCU called on High Baird College in Merseyside to increase its 1% pay offer after staff overwhelmingly voted for strike action. Unless management makes an improved…
- UCU slams Association of Colleges pay recommendation as ‘totally unacceptable’ UCU today condemned the latest pay offer of 2.5% from the Association of Colleges (AoC), made at a meeting yesterday, as ‘totally unacceptable.’ UCU said the refusal…
- University & college staff do two days unpaid work every week Staff at colleges and universities across the United Kingdom are doing the equivalent of at least two days unpaid work every week, according to a report that lays…
Local Events
Solidarity with the Railway Workers
Huddersfield TUC Rally
Saturday 25th June 2022
9.00 am Huddersfield Railway Station Come and show your solidarity with the Railway Workers Striking in defence of jobs, for a pay rise rise that reflects the cost of living and to defend their conditions
Bring along your Banners
ALL WELCOME
For more information – Bob Stoker, Secretary, 07530633708
HudUCU News Special: Redundancies in Arts And Humanities
Some news of interest to our members here in Huddersfield and UCU supporters everywhere
The main story dominating Huddersfield UCU at the moment is the threat of 37 redundancies in Arts and Humanities. The story has been highlighted in the press, including the Yorkshire Post, Times Higher Education and the central UCU website.
According to the central UCU website, included in the proposed cuts are:
11 staff in the department of History, English, Linguistics & Music
4 in the department of Media & Performance
3 in the department of Arts & Communications
7 in the department of Fashion & Textiles
5 in the department of Architecture & 3D Design
Huddersfield UCU chair, Gary Allen said “We have been shocked and saddened at the way the university has announced 37 proposed job cuts in the School of Arts and Humanities. The university has not followed its own procedures, it has not met its legal duty to enter into “meaningful collective consultation with the recognised trades unions in good time with a view to reaching an agreement” and it has not provided any financial justification for the cuts. After 2 recent rounds of job losses, structural changes, and mergers, and following the unprecidated covid situation, it is shocking that the university has decided to try to force through these changes at this time. We are working hard, with support from our regional and national officers, to pause these plans to allow time for a proper analysis to take place and for alternative proposals to be put forward. The cuts have been reported in local and national press, and we are receiving support from local politicians. We would urge our members to support our campaigns via social media to increase the pressure on the university to stop these cuts.”
Staff, students and supporters against the cuts have taken to social media:
“I was awake all night worrying. Losing so many valued colleagues to ‘redundancy’ AGAIN is horrible and makes no sense when student numbers are up and KPIs are being met. I am worried about the extra work for everyone left, how that will impact me and my job security.”
“This is appalling. The wholesale gutting of Arts & Humanities HE continues.”
“We express full solidarity with the academics who are at risk of redundancy and call on the Vice-Chancellor and others to rethink this proposal.”
“I did my PhD as a part-time person, I found @HistoryatHud to be a department with enthusiastic and passionate staff who would do anything they could to help you succeed.”
“This is heartbreaking. The staff are experts in their fields; learning from them is to walk amongst giants. Despite this, they never make you feel small; instead, they lift you up and inspire you to be just as great. Don’t let Hud Uni just throw away passionate staff.”
One department which has been hard hit from the proposed redundancies is Linguistics. A petition has been started to save the department. The message on the petition reads as follows:
“In Linguistics, two colleagues have received redundancy notices, with the remaining three invited to take part in a ‘selection to stay’ exercise in which they will be pitted against three colleagues from another subject area – for just three jobs. Under these plans, potentially every linguist at Huddersfield could be made redundant. The university has already stopped recruitment to our undergraduate courses. Our remaining undergraduate students would have to be ‘taught out’ by part-time hourly paid tutors, and the School has admitted it has no plan for how to supervise our current PhD students to completion.
Linguistics at Huddersfield is known worldwide for its work in stylistics, corpus linguistics, pragmatics and conversation analysis, among many other areas, as well as for its outreach work via the internationally renowned popular language magazine Babel. The latest REF recognised our world-leading research environment and internationally excellent impact.
We want the University of Huddersfield to remove the threat of redundancy from the linguistics staff, retain the Linguistics subject area and enable us to continue the research and teaching that enables our students to progress into meaningful and worthwhile careers.
We would very much welcome your support in helping us to fight these redundancy proposals.”
HudUCU Message from the Chair
We have been shocked and saddened at the way the university has announced 37 proposed job cuts in the School of Arts and Humanities. The university has not followed its own procedures, it has not met its legal duty to enter into “meaningful collective consultation with the recognised trades unions in good time with a view to reaching an agreement” and it has not provided any financial justification for the cuts. After 2 recent rounds of job losses, structural changes, and mergers, and following the unprecidated covid situation, it is shocking that the university has decided to try to force through these changes at this time. We are working hard, with support from our regional and national officers, to pause these plans to allow time for a proper analysis to take place and for alternative proposals to be put forward. The cuts have been reported in local and national press, and we are receiving support from local politicians. We would urge our members to support our campaigns via social media to increase the pressure on the university to stop these cuts.
Local Events
Members might be interested in the following events:
Support the railway workers’ strikesStrike – 40,000 workers at Network Rail & 33 train Companies
Defend Rail Jobs, Pay & Conditions
Please Support and join us on the picket line
Date Tuesday 21st June 2022
Meet Huddersfield Railway Station HD1 1JB
Time 7.00 am – 9.00 am
If we stand together in solidarity
We can win!
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
June Council Meeting
Join the discussion ‘What next after the 18 June demo?’
Motion on ‘No War on Ukraine’
from UNITE Community Huddersfield Branch
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
‘Stop the Privatisation of Channel 4’
speaker: Pete Keal (Secretary)
Equity Leeds & Region General Branch
Thursday 23rd June 2022 7.00 pm
Room 4Yorkshire Children’s Centre
New North Parade
Huddersfield HD1 5JP
All Welcome
For more information – Bob Stoker, Secretary, 07530633708
Huddersfield Arts & Humanities Redundancies
TUC: We Demand Better
Members might be interested to know about the following event, hosted by the TUC on June 18th:
Saturday 18 June | Portland Place, London | Assemble from 10.30am | March departs 12pm | Rally 1pm Map. Working people have had enough. Everything’s going up but our wages. Join the trade union movement in London to tell this government: we #DemandBetter!
HudUCU News Update
Some news which may be of interest to our members here in Huddersfield
- Two more strike days at Richmond upon Thames College over Fire & Rehire Staff at Richmond upon Thames College will warn prospective students and parents about the behaviour of college management as two more strike days were called to…
- Strike off at Hopwood Hall College after staff win pay rise of up to 7.5% Strike action due to take place today and Friday 10 June at Hopwood Hall College in Rochdale and Middleton, Greater Manchester, has been called off after staff…
- Stop ‘dangerous assault’ on higher education, UCU urges education secretary UCU wrote to Secretary of State for Education Nadhim Zahawi urging him to act now to stop a ‘dangerous assault’ on arts and humanities provision.
- Alarm at real terms cuts to universities in spending review UCU Scotland has expressed concern at the year-on-year real terms cuts to higher education set out in today’s Scottish Government’s Spending Review.
- Strength of USS pension scheme must be used to improve member benefits UCU said the vast improvement to the Universities Superannuation Scheme’s financial performance must be used to increase staff benefits.
- Strike threat at University of Wolverhampton over 146 course cull UCU has declared a dispute with the University of Wolverhampton and said today that it will be left with no choice but to ballot staff for strike action if the…
- Strike ballot at Hugh Baird College over ‘derisory’ 1% pay offer A ballot for strike action opened today at Hugh Baird College in Merseyside after management insisted it would only offer staff a ‘derisory’ 1% pay increase and…
Breaking News – Redundancies Announced
The university called a meeting this morning in the School of Arts and Humanities to announce further restructuring and redundancies. UCU (and UNISON) have not been provided with a full business case for the redundancies, and will be pressing the university to explain why proper processes have not been followed. The Branch Officers are waiting to hear from the School Reps. Further announcements will be made regarding school meetings as soon as possible.
HudUCU 