More pay cuts and redundancies

[Spareusername5]

University for the creative arts with campuses at Farnham, Epsom and Canterbury have decided to save money this time by enforcing a 1% pay cut and 5 days mandatory unpaid leave so effectively another 2% cut. Plus lots of other cuts and voluntary redundancies again. This is on top of two massive restructures that have halved professional services, and various vice chancellors leaving under NDAs with golden handshakes.
im in PS and only on around 30k full time, it works out at £700 loss for me. I’m already exhausted. Time to leave and reclaim some of my life I think.

Oh that’s bad. So sorry

Worse and worse it gets. Very few protected places now.

Sorry to hear this, so unfair and stressful

That's terrible! Have you taken the voluntary money and run? any chance they backtrack? (you never know!) Gosh I thought my uni was bad but this is dreadful!!

That's awful. Very best of luck @Spareusername5

Just to update, they backtracked! What a joke, they have no idea what they are doing. Unions have been great though.

So what are they going to cut instead?

no idea! Each department has been told to cut 15% of their budget… my department is down to the bone already. For some reason we now have two vice chancellors, personally I think getting rid of one of them would be a start!

You might consider leaving anyway! If you're in PS you must have buckets of transferrable skills and experience?

I left (academic) nearly 2 years ago in a VR round and I am very very glad I did.

A 1% pay cut plus 5 days mandatory unpaid leave imposed by the employer is effectively a unilateral change to contract terms. If staff haven't agreed to this, it could amount to an unlawful deduction from wages — and in some cases constructive dismissal if someone resigns as a result.
Worth checking whether the union (UCU likely) has been involved, as collective agreements can change things. But individual staff who haven't signed anything agreeing to this may have grounds to challenge it.
ukworkrights.co.uk has a free redundancy and employment rights checker that covers exactly this kind of situation — no login needed.