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”.