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Strike action on Thursday 14 May

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A reminder that we are taking strike action on Thursday 14 May in support of staff in  Scholar and LINCS who are still under threat of compulsory redundancy.

Edinburgh based colleagues are asked to join our picket line by the Riccarton Mains Road roundabout between 07:30 and 11:00. Please come early. If you are driving you can use either of the Park and Ride or the car park nearest the hotel.

We need as many of you as possible to be there on Thursday to show the university leadership your commitment to protecting the educational provision at Heriot-Watt. Bring your own placards, costumes, snacks, a chair to sit on, pink hats and waterproofs in case of rain.

If you only strike for one day – make it the 14th May. The pickets are friendly, collegial and you may make some of the best friends of your life on the pickets – I know I have. Strike not only to protect your jobs, but your colleague’s and friends jobs. Please take some time to show your colleagues that you stand with them in their time of need.

Dispute resolution process

We are in dispute over 3 key issues:

  1. The failure to rule out compulsory redundancies as a result of ‘rightsizing’
  2. the failure to rule out compulsory redundancies in Scholar
  3. Proposed changes to research time

In the last round of industrial action we cancelled the first two days of strike action to enable the discussions to continue and we tabled a proposal for financial stability without the need for compulsory redundancies. Our proposal was flatly rejected by the university without a meeting.

We have since had two key meetings.

Two of your negotiators met with the Deputy Principal for Research and Innovation and the Deputy Principal of Education and Student life to start a shared statement on research time. We will meet again to try and finalise a draft of this statement.

In a dispute resolution meeting on Monday the university had still not moved from their position on compulsory redundancies in Scholar and LINCS. Discussions are set to  continue after both parties take the time to reflect on the discussion.

Members have already twice rejected the proposal from the university and in absence of an improved offer the strike will now go ahead.

Declaring strike action

Members may wish to inform students of potential disruption to lectures and tutorials but you have no obligation to tell your line manager or the university that you plan to strike before the action takes place.

When asked after any strike days if you took part in industrial action you must declare truthfully whether you did. It is important too for demonstrating the strength of the action to management.

Solidarity

We have received the message below from the Glasgow Branch of the NUJ – who remind us that no trade union member ever stands alone:

NUJ Glasgow branch stands in solidarity with UCU members on strike at Heriot-Watt University. Our union’s own student members at Heriot-Watt depend on quality teaching and lecturers’ willingness to stand up to defend it. Management must listen to the union’s demands and rule out compulsory redundancies without delay.

Should I stay or should I go now: USS pensions part year revaluation

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USS pensions are revalued annually to provide for inflation. However, if you leave part way through a year, either by exiting the membership, a change of employment, redundancy, or retirement, then rule 10 part year revaluation is applied. This can affect the amount of income you receive in retirement relative to what you would have received had your pension been revalued in the normal way.

The branch Pensions rep will giving a short talk on the USS Pensions Rule 10 part year revaluation on Thursday 21 May from 1:00 to 1:30pm. This session is to look at how the scheme functions, how this rule is applied and how it effect varies year on year, and throughout the year.

This is not a financial advice session but it may be of interest to members who are considering deferring or retiring in the next few years. If you are considering major financial decisions you should seek the advice of a Financial Advisor.

If you are logged in via HWU Single Sign-On you will be able to join the Teams meeting at Meeting-Join | Microsoft Teams. Please check for an email from the branch if you need the Meeting ID and Passcode or the number to Dial in by phone.

We look forward to seeing some of you there.

Members’ Meeting to discuss offer from management

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We are scheduling a Members’ Meeting for 13:00 on Friday 13 March to discuss a potential offer which we are expecting to receive from the university management.

If an offer is made we will discuss and vote on it as a branch at the meeting. If an offer is not received the meeting will still proceed so that we can update members on the dispute and discuss the next steps.

The branch negotiators have made it clear that members would be unlikely to agree to call off further strike action unless we receive an offer which resolves the dispute.

If members have any questions about the negotiations and the strike action scheduled to start on Tuesday 17 March we will be able to answer them at the meeting.

If you can, please attend the meeting and be part of the discussions. We appreciate that not all members will be able to make the meeting and we will send out an update by email after for those who were unable to attend.

We look forward to seeing as many members as possible on Friday.

Action Short of Strike

We are currently undertaking Action Short of Strike (ASOS) until the dispute is resolved. Guidance on ASOS can be found at https://www.ucu.org.uk/article/13289/Taking-action-short-of-a-strike-ASOS

Observing ASOS helps us keep pressure on our employer by amplifing the impact of our strike action, so please do support your branch by following the ASOS guidance.

No Strike Action on Monday or Tuesday

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Despite the short notice a large number of members were able to attend this afternoon’s meeting to discuss a response the the university’s proposal.

The university concedes that the way it has presented data about the effect of Rightsizing on research time has caused confused the situation and led to the belief that research time will impacted for those undertaking research as part of their contract. The proposal offers some guarantees that research time will not be cut as a result of this exercise. Voluntary redundancy schemes are proposed for LINCS and Scholar with a view to removing compulsory redundancies if there is sufficient uptake.

We still have significant concerns and and further progress will need to be made on some key points before we can consider the dispute resolved. We do however consider this to movement in the right direction.

At the meeting members voted to call of strike action on Monday and Tuesday to allow further talks. UCU will now meet with the University Executive on Tuesday for further talks in a second dispute resolution meeting.

Remaining strike days

The scheduled strike days from Tuesday 17 March will go ahead as planned unless the branch receives an improved offer sufficient to resolve the dispute from the university.  We will more information about the strike action and picket line next week.

Action Short of Strike

Action Short of Strike (ASOS) will begin on Monday 9 March as planned and it is even more important now for members to stick strictly to ASOS to put pressure on our employer while continue talks. Guidance about ASOS can be found at https://www.ucu.org.uk/article/13289/Taking-action-short-of-a-strike-ASOS

Next meeting

In anticipation of further developments please hold the date provisionally for an online members’ meeting on Friday 13 March at 13:00. Confirmation with a link will be sent out during the week if negotiation progress merits. Please keep an eye on your email for updates.

 

Members’ Meeting to discuss initial offer by University Executive

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Our negotiating team and an official from UCU Scotland met with the University Executive (UE) yesterday in the first of two Dispute Resolution meetings.

The meeting was broadly productive with some progress made towards resolving the dispute. The UE have said that they will make an initial offer of concessions, in writing, by Friday lunchtime for which they will ask that members agree to step down strike action on Monday and Tuesday so that the Dispute Resolution conversation can continue. The negotiators have agreed that the offer, when it is received, should be put to members for consideration.

The offer which we expect to receive would only be in return for standing down strikes on Monday and Tuesday so that the Dispute Resolution process can continue with a meeting on Tuesday at which the negotiators hope to seek a more complete agreement resolve the dispute.

The negotiators feel that there has been sufficient progress in the first meeting to warrant consideration of an offer. While we do not expect the initial offer to be fully fleshed out we would expect to see some kind of concrete commitment to members in exchange for them considering to call off the first two days of strike action. We remain hopeful that the UE will deliver on their promise.

Members’ Meeting

There will be an online members’ meeting to discuss the offer at 15:00 on Friday 6 March. All members have been sent an email with instructions on how to join the meeting.

We are aware that this meeting is very short notice and not all our members will be able to join but it is vital that the meeting is quorate, so please attend if you can and help us decide collectively what our next steps should be.  We update all members on the outcome as we can after the meeting is concluded.

If you can, please attend the meeting. It was our membership voting  for industrial action over these issues in record numbers which has brought the UE to the negotiating table.

Members meeting: Result of local ballot for industrial action

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We are hoping that the results of the local ballot for industrial action will be finalised by Monday afternoon. The employer will then be informed, as the law requires, before members are notified. For a ballot to be valid at least 50% of eligible members must vote and the majority who vote must vote in favour of industrial action.

We will be holding an online branch members’ meeting on Tuesday 17 February at 12:00pm to discuss the results of the ballot and determine our next steps.

Members should have received a Zoom meeting invite by email. If you haven’t received yours please let us know. If BSL interpreting is required please contact the on-campus BSL interpreting service to arrange this via marion.fletcher@hw.ac.uk.

Why are we in dispute?

At our last members’ meeting there was overwhelming support to move to dispute if  Heriot-Watt would not commit to ruling out the use of compulsory redundancies and significant changes to research time.

Unfortunately, we were unable to secure these commitments during the consultations for Rightsizing and the proposed changes to, or closure of, Scholar.

Rightsizing

We have learned that the Department of Languages and Intercultural Studies (LINCS) finds itself under the threat of profound cuts and closures and we have launched a petition to save LINCS which has already attracted a huge number of signatures. If you haven’t already, please sign the petition and help support our campaign to stop these extremely damaging proposals under which a third of the staff could face redundancy.

Please also consider writing to MSPs/MPs or any other influential parties that may be able to support this campaign

Scholar

You can also help by showing your support for Scholar and the vital service that it provides via the form at https://sites.google.com/view/scholar-for-scotland/support-scholar.

Please spread the message and help amplify. As well as MSPs and MPs this should be of significant interest to anyone invested in supporting education in Scotland. This includes local councillors, teachers and pupils (past and present), and Heriot-Watt students who have used Scholar services like that Maths Gym.

Join UCU today

To our many new members – welcome!

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

HWUCU Branch Member Meetup

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We will be having an informal meetup for new and not-so-new branch members in the Chaplaincy on Wednesday 4 February 2026 from 12noon to 1pm.

HaWo, the Membership Officer, and other members of the branch committee will be there to welcome new members. This will be good opportunity to find out more about the union in general and also about the local ballot for industrial action over ‘Rightsizing’ and ‘Scholar‘.

Please do spread the word and encourage other members to attend.

Don’t forget to vote

If you haven’t already, please post your UCU ballot paper and help us fight to protect jobs in Scholar and the departments affecting by Rightsizing, and to limit the impact of on workload and research time. You can let us know you have voted by emailing
ucu@hw.ac.uk or replying to any email or text messages you have received from the branch office or UCU central.

If you have not received your ballot paper there is still time to request a replacement.

Scholar

Support the Scholar for Scotland campaign to avoid this important educational resource from being shut down with a loss of jobs. If you would like to know more please read this Scholar explainer.

Members’ Meeting: Rightsizing and Scholar

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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

 

Emergency Members’ Meeting: Outcomes of Portfolio Review – Rightsizing

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Members will have received an email from the university with the concerning news that there are to be job cuts in Scotland and Malaysia as result of the Portfolio Review.

The communication was sent while representatives from the 3 recognised unions were still in the initial meeting with the university management team.

More meeting will follow at which we will seek further details about the proposals. The university management team have so far refused to commit to avoiding compulsory redundancies.

Emergency Members Meeting

It is essential that we are able to represent members views so we will holding an Emergency Members’ Meeting to discuss the situation at 3.00pm on Thursday 13 November .

The meeting will be conducted online via Zoom. Please check your inbox for the link to the meeting. If you haven’t received or need a reminder please contact any of the branch committee or the local branch office.

There will be an opportunity to raise and discuss other issues relating to working at HWU under AOB at the end of the meeting. If you are not able to attend but would like to raise an item please contact Kate Sang with your comments.

It is very short notice but it is very important that you attend and have your say at a quorate meeting. Please attend if at all possible.

Gaza: A story of Love and War (Film Screening)

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The story of two journalists who meet to share stories. One is Welsh and unable to get into Gaza. The other is Palestinian and unable to get out. As they talk, a very personal history of the Nakba is narrated, from the expulsions of 1948 to the killing streets and tent cities of 2024.

After the screening Mike Joseph, who made the film, will be asking Tracey Gilbert MP about the political response to the ongoing crisis via a Zoom call.

The event is being held on Wednesday 12 November 2025 at The Quaker Meeting House, 7 Victoria Terrace, Edinburgh. EH1 2JL. Door open at 6.30 and the screening will start at 7.00pm.

Tickets can be booked via https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/gaza-a-story-of-love-and-war-film-screening-tickets-1857116378079. Proceeds from this screening to directly support Palestinian Journalist Sami Abu Salem and Medical Aid for Palestine.

Hosted by ETUC in affiliation with EIS Edinburgh.