University staff threaten strike action over job cuts

BANGOR University staff are threatening industrial action, including a marking boycott, over possible compulsory redundancies.

- ABBIE WIGHTWICK

Last month, the university, which has around 2,000 staff, announced a further 78 job losses on top of 200 already announced in February, saying it could not rule out compulsory redundancies as it tries to save £15m.

Now the Bangor branch of the UCU union has won a consultative industrial action ballot of its members, describing the management cuts consultation as "a shambles."

Around 55% of the union's membership voted in the ballot, of which 88% of the union branch's academic and professional services staff voted in favour of strike action to avoid compulsory redundancies in 2025.

A consultative ballot, also known as an indicative ballot, is a pre-legal ballot conducted by a trade union to gauge member support for potential industrial action. Unlike a formal strike ballot, it's not legally required and does not mandate action.

But the UCU warned: "This strong showing in this consultative ballot will now mean that the branch can move forwards with a legal ballot of members. If the same results are achieved, then they will comfortably win a mandate for strike action and action short of a strike (up to, and including, a marking boycott)."

Professor Edmund Burke, vice chancellor of the university, which is running a £15m savings consultation, recently told a Commons committee that this action should mean the 140-year-old institution lasts another century and beyond.

On the same day, a Senedd committee was told by a union official that there was a real risk that a Welsh university "could collapse".

The university ended the last academic year £13m in deficit, according to its recently published and delayed financial report.

Staff at the university have spoken of being "worried sick about the forced loss of their livelihood", with hundreds of jobs going and some employees facing compulsory redundancy as university management tries to balance the books.