Agreement University staff call off strike action over plans to cut jobs

A STRIKE by Bristol University staff over plans to make job cuts has been ended after the university and unions reached an agreement.

- Tristan CORK

The UCU union had started what was intended to be 21 days of increasing strike action over the job cuts, which has seen 45 members of staff in the university's Centre for Academic Language and Development (CALD) told they were at risk of compulsory redundancy.

The strike action began earlier in July after months of campaigning since the announcement by university that cuts had to be made to the service, despite the number of international students attending the university increasing.

Staff reps and unions slammed the cuts, saying the plan is “devastating” for people who work at CALD. They are part of a wider cost-cutting exercise at Bristol Uni which staff say has seen pressures on individual departments to bring much more money in to the university in fees than it costs to run them.

The strike saw a walkout planned on each Wednesday of July, starting on July 9.

The planned strike on Wednesday, July 16 was averted late on Tuesday after university chiefs said they had reached an initial agreement with the UCU over the job cuts and the way they were being handled.