UCU: Restructuring, redundancies and student solidarity

Motion

Motion text: HESC notes:
1. That management at London Metropolitan University plans cuts of around 120 teaching and teaching-related posts.
2. These cuts threaten teaching quality, supervision, and the university’s widening participation mission.
3. That students are already organising petitions and public opposition to the proposals.

HESC believes:
a That defending academic staff jobs and defending students’ education are inseparable.
b That strong staff–student solidarity is essential to win this dispute.

HESC resolves:
i To declare London Met a dispute of national significance.
ii To launch a national political campaign with the NUS, foregrounding student protection.
iii To convene a Branch Delegate Meeting of branches fighting redundancies.
iv To launch a student-staff lobby of Parliament and the Senedd Cymru on HE funding.
v To call on the union to develop a coordinated national campaign across higher education to defend jobs, pay and pensions.
vi To move urgently towards national industrial action, including a ballot where appropriate, to ensure that the fight against redundancies and job losses is taken up across the sector.
vii To ensure national coordination and support so that no branch is left isolated when facing redundancies or restructuring.