Over the last 2 weeks there have been meetings with departments and schools where the university has shared its proposals for ‘Rightsizing’. The branch committee have been supporting members at these meetings when sufficient advance notice of the discussions has been given.

The university has also continued to move forward with proposed changes to Scholar and colleagues in that team have been advised of a voluntary severance scheme with a very short window of opportunity which will close before the outcome of ongoing discussions with the various stakeholders are known.

These meetings have caused considerable distress among our members and colleagues. Please contact the branch if you would like to raise any concerns with us. Members can also access counselling via UCU at https://www.ucu.org.uk/educationsupport .

Voluntary severance scheme

Members in some of these areas may be considering the university’s voluntary severance scheme. If you are in that position, we advise that you make use of the financial advice service provided by https://www.ucu.org.uk/quilterfinancialadvice as part of your UCU membership benefits. If you have questions relating to the impact on pensions, these can also be directed to the branch at ucu@hw.ac.uk .

Move to dispute

At our last members’ meeting there was overwhelming support to move to dispute if the employer was not willing to rule out compulsory redundancies or significant changes to research time.

Unfortunately, we have not been able to secure these commitments during consultations and, as a consequence, have issued a ‘Failure to Agree’ letter to the Principal, requesting that such commitments be provided by the end of next week.

Members’ meeting

We are holding a follow-up member’s meeting at 2.30pm on Wednesday 3 December. At this meeting we will discuss the situation and what our options are. Please attend if you can so that we can have a strong turnout for decision making.

The meeting will be via Zoom and members should have received an email with the link. Please let the branch know if you need BSL interpreting. 

Join UCU today

We have many new members – welcome!

Please do encourage your colleagues to join the union at https://www.ucu.org.uk/join