UWS staff begin strike ballot over job cuts
The vote follows a £16.9m cost-cutting programme announced in January. The university has already cut £8m and shed more than 112 roles
Register to get 1 more free article
Reveal the article below by registering for our email newsletter.
Want unlimited access? View Plans
Already have an account? Sign in
Staff at the University of the West of Scotland (UWS) will begin voting on potential industrial action in response to job cuts and senior management’s refusal to rule out compulsory redundancies.
Members of the University and College Union (UCU) are being asked whether they support strike action and action short of a strike, which could include working to contract and refusing to cover for absent colleagues. The ballot runs until 14 August.
The vote follows a £16.9m cost-cutting programme announced in January. The university has already cut £8m and shed more than 112 roles. Senior management is now pursuing plans to cut a further 75 posts, despite union calls to avoid compulsory redundancies.
The UCU warned the scale of the cuts and pace of job losses would be “devastating” for both staff and students. Remaining staff, it said, face rising workloads and reduced capacity to support students.
Jamie Hopkin, UCU UWS branch president, said: “Management at UWS are pressing on with detrimental plans to make staff redundant that will do nothing other than diminish the university’s standing, and harm the students that study here.
“Staff do not want to go on strike, but what is being proposed will damage UWS’s crucial missions of teaching, research and widening access to higher education. I can see even in my own work that those staff that remain will be under increasing pressure with unmanageable workloads and will have less time to offer students in need of support with their studies.Members at UWS are genuinely angry at the actions of senior managers. Members need to return their ballots and force the principal to think again and to rule out the use of compulsory redundancies.”
UCU general secretary Jo Grady added: “UWS is genuinely important to communities across the West of Scotland. Cutting staff on this scale doesn’t sit with the university’s responsibility and commitment to local communities in Paisley, Ayrshire, Lanarkshire and the South of Scotland.
“The principal and senior managers need to change course or else they face the prospects of industrial action and strikes.”
