Northumbria University staff to hold strike ballot over £12.5m workforce cuts

The University and Colleges Union has announced it will formally ballot members at Northumbria University next week over strike action.

This is the latest move in a dispute over plans announced in February which would see the university's staffing budget slashed by £12.5m. The university's leadership has said savings were needed to ensure it is "able to cover our costs".

However, the UCU has declared an industrial dispute, and in light of what union officials said was the university refusing to rule out compulsory redundancies, is to ballot its members over strike action. Regional official Jon Bryan said the union "wanted nothing more than to get back around the table" with university bosses.

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He said: "We want nothing more than to get back round the table with Northumbria and resolve this dispute, but the university will not meet with us and has refused to rule out compulsory job losses. Given this, we have no choice but to ballot for strike action."

The university has in a statement disputed claims that the cuts would lead to course closures or the university becoming less welcome to local students. A spokesperson said that in making the "challenging" cuts, it was hopeful that its aim of avoiding compulsory redundancies "remains achievable".

They said: "Since we first announced to our staff that we needed to make some challenging reductions to our staff base we have said that our aim was to do that without recourse to compulsory redundancies. In the past few weeks we have made excellent progress in securing reductions via the removal of vacancies and voluntary severance, and are hopeful that aim remains achievable.

"During that time we have worked in good faith with our UNISON partners in relation to professional support staff towards the goal of no compulsory redundancies but the conversations with our UCU colleagues have been less productive."

The university and the union have disputed factual issues around what the union believes the consequences of the cuts are likely to be. The union said that the wording for a joint statement had been agreed but this has not been taken forward. Both sides have expressed a willingness to return to the negotiating table.

The university spokesperson added: "The positive news is that despite the difficulties with UCU we have found solutions that give us increased confidence that we will be able to avoid compulsory redundancies."

The strike ballot will launch on Monday and run until April 28.