Dundee University staff begin five days of strike action amid ongoing job cut threats

Staff at the University of Dundee have begun five days of strike action amid ongoing threats of job cuts.

University and College Union (UCU) members began strike action on November 10, to mark the first anniversary of the institution’s financial crisis.

Workers are also taking part in action short of a strike, including working to contract, not covering for colleagues, or undertaking voluntary activities at the university.

The action will continue until November 14.

It comes as part of an ongoing dispute following an announcement of potential compulsory redundancies last November amid a £30m deficit.

University and College Union (UCU) members began strike action on Monday, November 10, to mark the first anniversary of the institution’s financial crisis. STV News

The Scottish Government has already stepped in and bailed out the university with £40m of emergency cash, with ministers said to have the expectation this would help keep job losses at Dundee to a maximum of 300.

Now, staff are saying they have been “misled” over the threat of compulsory redundancies.

The union said that an agreement was in place to limit job losses to voluntary if millions of pounds of government funding were granted.

However, interim university principal, professor Nigel Seaton, told Holyrood’s Education Committee earlier this month that the Scottish Funding Council – the body which funds universities in Scotland – now accepts that further reductions in the workforce will have to take place.

He said the total number of jobs lost would exceed the 300 agreed through voluntary severance, and a draft recovery plan has suggested 390 posts could go, including 170 through compulsory means.

Staff members told STV News that they believe they have been misled over the extent of the cuts.

Tánaiste Custance, student president, said students are “fed up” with the ongoing crisis.

“I think students are fed up. This is a financial crisis that is still going on. That is causing staff to have concern for their jobs, concern for their future.”

Carlo Morelli, UCU Dundee, called on the Scottish Government to put conditions on the funding that protect jobs and taxpayers.

She explained: “We do not want funding that comes without conditions and allows university management who’ve simply squandered hundreds of millions of pounds of public funding, repeatedly over the last few years.”