Tag: Cuts
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The Marketisation of the Civic University
There is something unsettling about reading a university research restructuring document that repeatedly speaks the language of “financial sustainability”, “income generation”, “strategic alignment” and “performance”, while saying remarkably little about knowledge, intellectual life or the civic purpose of research itself. Like many colleagues across UK higher education, I have now lived through years of restructuring,…
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For the Common Good? Redundancies and the Hollowing Out of Support at GCU
Glasgow Caledonian University is moving towards compulsory redundancies in subjects including economics and history, as well as student support, with staff expected to enter formal selection and scoring processes in the coming weeks. But this is not simply a local staffing dispute. What is happening at GCU reflects a growing national crisis across UK higher…
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GCU combined unions call all staff meeting Monday 21st November
The Combined Unions at GCU have called an all staff meeting next Monday, 21st November The University is facing a £3 million deficit. GCU management plans for a “New York Campus” are 3 years behind schedule and are costing millions of pounds per year. A dispute between GCU and Cordia threatened 70 of our catering…
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A dark day for the University for the Common Good
Catering workers in tears as 69 told they will be on the dole two weeks before Christmas. It’s not often that work as a trade union representative brings me to the edge of tears, but as I watched four of the Cordia catering staff – all women who had sold me coffee and sandwiches at…
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GCU Unions – Management do not have a monopoly on wisdom
The trade unions at GCU note that Court endorsed the Executive proposals on restructuring at their meeting yesterday. Whilst happy with the removal of the threat of 95 compulsory redundancies, which was made by the Executive on 18th May, the trade unions are disappointed that none of the suggestions and alternatives to the management driven…
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Scottish Parliament hears the case for reform of University Governance
A packed Committee Room 1 of the Scottish Parliament heard calls for bringing democracy to the present system of University Governance – widely seen as ‘not fit for purpose’, in the view of university staff from the majority of Scotland’s universities. MSPs from the governing SNP, and from Labour and the Greens were clearly disturbed…
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GCU Petition to Court launched as UCU and EIS decide for action
Following senior management rejection of the joint Trade Unions offer to work together to lobby the new government for additional funding if the threat of compulsory redundancies was lifted, an all staff petition has been launched to pressurise the University Court to live up to its responsibilities towards GCU. This reads: Dear Chair of Court…
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Adding insult to injury: GCU management organise line manager workshops for ‘when you have to give bad news’ at GCU
In an incredibly insensitive e-mail to GCU all staff the GCU OD department are now publicly advertising workships for line-managers on ‘handling difficult conversations’. Described as ‘a range of resources available to staff to support during the restructuring process’ the e-mail image below is perhaps ‘worth a thousand words’, or at least more than a…
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Management at GCU spurn trade union olive branch and continue with threat of redundancies
To begin with a quote from the message management formally gave the Unions at the consultation meeting yesterday “We are not at this moment in a position to guarantee no compulsory redundancies, but have stated that we will remove the risk of redundancy in respect of this consultation if and when we are in a…
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Unions at GCU call for emergency meeting of Court, and immediate independent inquiry into Senior Management
Following David Beeby’s announcement at 7.30pm yesterday evening the GCU Combined Union Committee have issued the following statement “The trade unions at Glasgow Caledonian note with astonishment the statement from senior management that the UK Borders Agency has suspended our licence to recruit international students for 28 days. This is the first time this has…
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