Redundancies at your university?

[Oh2beatsea]

Are any of you working at one of the many universities that are struggling financially?
Our university announced the financial pressure it's under recently and they are now talking about redundancies. I know a few in the sector are in a similar position and wondered what stage you might be at and how has the process been managed? Have they offered voluntary redundancy first or have they gone straight to compulsory redundancies?
Unsettling times.

The courses/disciplines that make a surplus are those that are scaleable and efficient in design (i.e. few specialist modules). Scaleable allows for less staff resource for high student fee income. Arts and Humanities can sadly never hope to attract the number of students necessary to play in this arena. What was sustainable 5-10 years ago is no longer viable - costs have risen so dramatically within that timeframe.

To the person up thread who mentioned redundancies at Durham - to my knowledge, people are being invited to apply for voluntary redundancy. Email specifically said no compulsory redundancies. Of course, everything can change but unless the poster has access to info we don't (very possible) nothing compulsory. Yet!

The issues are discussed here

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/mar/29/britain-universities-freefall-saving-them-funding-international-students?CMP=fbgu&utmmmedium=Social&utmsource=Facebook&fbclid=IwAR05G66QrFpfrkGgVv5vXx1SyGzt81gEnP6DD-OqlRJf960ses-YCbavP68aemmATa25q3iR3LMZC2AE4fWox4idcjLSfgvcm8wc8VxVVg3tiQl661uPIEWyjXmo8ZqnOiuusTygTsOdl3L8qYjv#Echobox=1711712440

UWE has just announced voluntary redundancies with a view to move to compulsory if not enough people take up the offer. It’s just so exhausting.

We’ve just finished a voluntary severance process, with quite good up-take, and the next step is a more targeted voluntary redundancy scheme, targeted at areas where they definitely need to reduce the head count.

I was lucky enough to get a 3+1 for my postgrad studies, though I’m not sure I’d have accepted if I’d known just how precarious our sector would become (my grant was awarded 2008 ).

What areas are those?

What’s the difference between voluntary severance and voluntary redundancy? Does the compensation differ?

Might depend on the university but ours is just moving from VS to VR and the compensatory is the same. I did ask what’s the point if the compensation is the same and applied it’s something to do with that before VR gets opened in the next couple of weeks they will announce how many people in each dept they need to lose. So say if you’re in a team of 4 and are told 1 person needs to go if you are worried you might be that person you might now take VR because apparently the compensatory for compulsory redundancy is even worse. Sounds shit.

Apparently lincoln are stopping all language degrees

😭😭

In our university, the social sciences are more than self-funding and do cross-fund STEM, not the humanities/arts though. We have a VS scheme that has just opened, even though we are in a good surplus and very well-advantaged in the sector, so who knows why? My theory is that some universities are in the shit, but some are not and they are using the cover of 'the whole sector is in dire straits' to get some expensive staff out and cut staff costs (e.g. those near to retirement).

Our union branch is bslloting us on strike action. I’ve never striked as an academic before. What’s the low down?

Obviously if I’m meant to be teaching that day and I strike it’s all good, the students don’t get taught and there’s an impact. But if it’s a day I’m not teaching surely there’s no impact? My work just piles up and I do it the next day. So I lose a days pay for nothing?

Yes, pretty much. That is an issue with applying manual labour tactics to white collar jobs. Lots of people get around it by selectively striking. If you strike on a non-teaching/non-meeting day then you are only hurting yourself by depriving yourself of the opportunity to do research and the employer saved a day’s pay.

If you are. more committed to the cause then you can also spend the non-teaching day on the picket lines.

this is why its bizarre ucu tries to get post-docs to strike - it literally has no impact and they have to catch up on work in their own time and then aren't paid for it.

Would make more sense to acknowledge this and suggest they pay money into the strike funds to fund teaching staff who can damage the university.

@AcademicBurnOut
yes, exactly. From my experience, the strikes tend to make more work for me! As if an important teaching session is missed, I need to think up creative ways of covering the material in less time.

However strikes are one of the few ways left to fight back so I don’t see what choice we have 🤷🏻‍♀️ What a shitty situation for everyone.

Is anyone thinking about leaving the sector or are you waiting to be potentially pushed out?

The situation has got worse and worse at my uni (with teaching loads now set to double) but the jobs market as a whole is just crap at the moment - even in industries that previously looked good i.e. tech. What jobs are academics supposed to get? Situation feels slightly hopeless!

I'm not in that position yet @ForestElfGirl (my department is profit making and not at risk at the moment), but if I was I guess I'd think about teaching?

Anyone hear the R4 discussion on this just now?

No, what were they saying?

No, what was said? Was this about the state of the sector more generally or on the Mercer decision?

Re redundancies, I think I’m pretty secure but I think private tutoring plus consultancy work would be my options if I left. Lots of academia isn’t easily transferable though, I know I’m fortunate.

Voluntary severance package offered across my university today.

About the cuts to humanities departments but the guests were good at explaining how this is a symptom of bigger issues in the sector including funding, fees, low value rhetoric etc

Do you know what programme was this please?

@Mia85 it was Front Row on r4