Manchester College strike action over job losses

24 June 2009

Members of UCU today (Wednesday) overwhelmingly voted for strike action at Manchester College.

Following a ballot where 74% of members polled voted yes to strike action and 84% voted in favour of action short of a strike, the union announced that members will walk out on Wednesday 1 July.

The union is furious that the college, which is a result of a merger last summer between MANCAT and City College Manchester, is pushing ahead with what it describes as 'unnecessary and punitive' job losses. The redundancies would see six jobs go in maths and biology and seven in English for speakers of other languages (ESOL).

Some of the courses to close include the most basic level ESOL classes and UCU is concerned at the effect this will have on the most vulnerable people in the local community. The union warned today that Wednesday's strike could be the first action in a long campaign to save jobs, if the college refused to back down.

UCU head of further education, Barry Lovejoy, said: 'At a time when we should be looking to extend further education's ability to meet the needs of our communities, Manchester College seems intent of pushing ahead with unnecessary and punitive job cuts. The college should be joining with unions in presenting a case to government to preserve education funding at a time when our communities need it the most, rather than pushing through these irrational job cuts.

'Manchester College is one of the biggest in Europe and should be looking to make full use of the expertise of the staff it has, not axe them when the local community needs them most. Management needs to develop a better relationship with the union. It's in the interests of staff and students for there to be better industrial relations.'

South Manchester College Redundancies

David Swanson, long-time rep and trade union activist at South Manchester College is being victimised by bosses, among around 20+ staff targeted for compulsory redundancy. The targeting of David is a clear case of victimisation. The UCU at MANCAT have balloted for industrial action. They will be going on strike next Wednesday.

Please send messages of support and solidarity to: UCUthemanchestercollege@googlemail.com

Anti-BNP Demo

There is going to be an hour of leafleting against the BNP in Salford Precinct this Saturday morning 22 May. Meet at 11am by Tesco. Apparently the BNP tried to set up a stall in the Precinct last weekend, but local people objected and they left.

Media City Costs

We had clarification of the above at the recent Union-Management Joint Forum at which it was stated by the Director of Finance that these were always known to be £27.5M, not the £10-12M that we had somehow thought. So, with the HEFCE grant of £8M, the University has to come up with nearly £20M in order to move into MediaCity in the next 2-3 years. Annual running costs are apparently expected to be £5M.

Project Headroom Update

Apologies for the blog going quiet, news on Project Headroom has been quite slow lately. If anyone has anything please do send it to the UCU email address. Substantiated facts only I'm afraid, no rumours & myths.

Jim Atherton & John Dobson went to a Headroom overarching meeting on the 14th April. The current state of play is :-

• They have achieved 140 of the 150 job losses they wanted.
• There are 10 positions still at risk and 33 staff in the ‘at risk’ groups
• The jobs are risk are:

- Health Faculty Office – 1 AR

- Languages – 1.5 Academic

- Learning Development Unit – 1 non-academic

- ILS – 2.5 carried over from Phase 1 (1 AR, 0.5 non-academic).

- CSE – 2 (1 academic, 1 academic related)

- ELS – 1 academic

- Estates – 1 non academic

• While there are no guarantees, it seems likely that these 10 will reduce considerably during the next few weeks through ‘bumping’ and redeployment.
• The 90 days minimum statutory redundancy consultation ends on Thursday 16th April.
• We have refused to end the redundancy consultation. This was not controversial and was accepted by Management. However, we have agreed that work can progress in making arrangements for the volunteers to leave. Agreeing a leaving date is the first step.
  

SUDE Demo Today

Today(Thursday 12 March) at 4:30 - 5pm, staff and students will be assembling at the Clifford Whitworth Building in order to take our petitions and protests against cuts and redundancies to the Old Fire Station.

We estimate that the combined petitions may hold around 3,000 signatures of staff and students, a not inconsiderable figure. In collecting these signatures, we have been able to gauge the general mood on the different campuses regarding Project Headroom and the impact that it will have, and is already having on staff and students alike. For those staff who have been involved in the staff/student petition, there is widespread concern and dismay that students are paying increasingly higher tuition fees, yet they are receiving a poorer education as a result of the widespread redundancies and cuts in courses, which are an inevitable result of management strategy.

Further, through our actions, we have consulted far wider layers of the university population than have upper management over the issue of redundancies. We have spoken to staff and students directly and it appears from our petitions, that there is a resounding 'thumbs down' to Project Headroom.

We need to ensure a large turnout tomorrow for the 'handing over' of the petitions which will be undertaken by one member of staff and one student. Please circulate this email as widely as possible and encourage students to come along to the event. We are after all, fighting for their education.

There is still time to sign the staff petition if you have not done so already. There is one in the School of Language office 8th floor Maxwell.

We will also be able to air our brand new branch UCU banner.

Petition Against Compulsory Redundancy

A petition has been created by UCU for staff to sign. This petition is available online here. If you do not want to sign online, for whatever reason, there are plenty of opportunities to sign a hard copy of the petition.

Reps in your area should be coming round asking you if you would like to sign. There will also be a stall around the University manned by reps and officers of UCU. The petition is not just for union members to sign, non-union members and members of other campus unions are also welcome. Non-union members may also want to consider joining the union in this particularly uncertain time.

Demonstration Against the Cuts,Thursday 5 February

On Thursday 5 February a demonstration was held against job cuts at the University of Salford. This was attended by staff and students. Here is a video of the demo:



A member of staff attending the demo gave the following report:

Yesterday’s demonstration was very well attended (150-200 people), lively (stopped traffic for a short time) loud (students playing instruments) and eye-catching (many wore masks, and a coffin was carried across the road and placed outside the Old Fire Station to symbolise the potential demise of education at Salford). Staff and students spoke of their concerns about ‘Project Headroom’ and the future of education here. The chanting, music and speeches resounded around the Old Fire Station. It was an inspiring protest and gained coverage on Channel M, Key 103 radio, and a photo- report in the Salford Star.

During the coming week there will be petition stands around the University and members of staff will be coming round asking you to sign a petition against the proposed job cuts. The petition is also available on line and can be found here. Please take a moment to sign this so that the Senior Management Team can see the strength of feeling against cuts and redundancies at the University.

Fight the staff cuts at Salford University

There will be a demonstration organised by SUDE against the staff cuts and proposed redundancies:

5:00pm Thursday 5th Feb
Old Fire Station
The Crescent
Salford
opposite Maxwell Building
University of Salford.

Please come along if you can make it.

Support Amanda Sackur, NEC Member

Amanda Sackur, a branch officer at London Met University at the forefront of the campaign against compulsory redundancies, is being disciplined for her trade union activities.

Amanda attended Nottingham Trent University to advise UCU Members on the action being taken against the de-recognition of UCU at that institution. She did this in her capacity as a NEC Officer. She is being disciplined by LMU for non-attendance at work. Amanda is a member of Academic Staff and is not contractually obliged to be on the premises in order to conduct her work.

Please sign the on-line petition at www.petitiononline.com/defendas/petition.html