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Reposted by Durham UCU

Lincoln Branch of UCU @uculincolnbranch.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

UCU members at the University of Lincoln have voted overwhelmingly to tell University managers - no more compulsory redundancies or face industrial action. A huge mandate to protect jobs, protect our programmes and support out students! @ucu.org.uk

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University and College Union (UCU) @ucu.org.uk · 30/09/2026

Nottingham today. Everywhere tomorrow. 2,700 staff put at risk. 600+ jobs targeted. At least 48 courses facing closure. What happens here sets the template for the sector. Stand with Nottingham.

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Reposted by Durham UCU

Duncan Hothersall @dhothersall.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

For all that it's been barely reported in the UK press, it's still hard to understate the importance of the stance @labourunionsuk.bsky.social has taken on trans and non-binary rights this week. Every single trade union affiliated to the party of government has stood up and said we will not comply.

Joint statement from National TULO

Solidarity with the trans and non-binary community

Labour's 11 affiliated trade unions stand in total solidarity with the trans and non-binary community.

Trans rights are human rights, and trans rights are workers' rights.

We in the trade union movement will do all we can to stand up for our trans members and all our trans siblings, to protect them from persecution, harassment and attack.

The government must act now to protect all trans people, to make sure their rights are protected, expanded and upheld in our workplaces and communities.

Labour Unions

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Durham UCU @ducu.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

And this again goes back to the broader point we were making yesterday - it's extremely hard to believe university managers are prioritising their staff's best interests when they see reminding us they're in charge as more important than figuring out how we can work together.

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Durham UCU @ducu.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

So why do it? As Jamie says, it runs down the clock - as well as extending the unpleasantness of the experience for the employee. The second is just a base powerplay: "We are too important to take any account of your needs". It's highlighting the power differential.

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Durham UCU @ducu.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

This is key: the "we will tell you when you are to appear before us" approach isn't even efficient; it ends up taking up more work and time than just mutually agreeing dates.

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University of Nottingham UCU branch @uonucu.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

With strike action set to begin in a week and a half, here is a quick overview of what is happening at your university, why it is happening, what UCU is doing about it, and how you can support us as we fight for the future of UoN. #UCU #UoN #UoNUCU #UniversityOfNotting #StopTheCuts #SaveHE

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Durham UCU @ducu.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Put simply: if a university's management wants its staff to trust them, they need to (re)-earn that trust. They need to show their priorities are the staff they employ, and the students those staff teach.

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Durham UCU @ducu.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

...But we'll NEVER KNOW, because the strategy has been one of total deception and stonewalling. Endlessly shifting management-speak claims in which the only reliable constant is that we'll be told that we're the problem for not being more grateful.

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Durham UCU @ducu.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

It's an interesting thought experiment as to how staff and students would respond if UCEA were honest about what's going on - staff working conditions and student educational experiences are worsening across the board because of a spiralling financial crisis in the sector...

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Durham UCU @ducu.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Sometimes it gets particularly brazen - members told they were losing 50% of their pay during the MAB because of how our actions were hurting students, while students were told the MAB wouldn't actually materially affect them.

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Durham UCU @ducu.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

...That any problems with stress and burnout are the HoDs problem (while refusing to give HoDs any additional resources), and that "new working practices" will magically appear any day now to solve the problem.

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Durham UCU @ducu.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

And on the other side of things, staff are forced to work harder and harder every year, as staff numbers shrink and student numbers increase. And yet we're repeatedly told that there's no problem, that the people we lose weren't really needed...

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Durham UCU @ducu.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

And the answer is: look at what's actually going on. Our students are being repeatedly lied to. Fewer staff won't affect you, industrial actiom hasn't affected you, COVID hasn't affected you. The gaslighting of cohort after cohort, in the hopes appeals will cost less than actually addessing issues.

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Durham UCU @ducu.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

This kind of thing is why we're always baffled when colleagues argue we need to be more understanding of the people in charge. Aren't we aware the sector is in flames? Aren't we just throwing peanuts at people genuinely doing their best in absolutely impossible circumstances?

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Durham UCU @ducu.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

From an outside perspective, it sure sounds like management are hoping the money they end up paying in student appeals costs them less than the salaries of the people they needed to actually teach the courses.

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Reposted by Durham UCU

Dundee UCU @ducuuo.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

No surrender until the University of Dundee rule out making colleagues compulsory redundant. Donate to our campaign as we seek crowdfund support for a Judicial Review of the governance decisions that led the University Court to approve staff and programme cuts www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/judicial-r...

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Durham UCU @ducu.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

"So why bother reading them, DUCU?" Because letting them know you know they're messing you about has value. Sometimes they'll back off. Sometimes it'll just add to the amount they'll offer you in an exchange for signing a NDA after they succeed in their constructive dismissal campaign against you.

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Durham UCU @ducu.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

ALWAYS read up on all disciplinary processes and policies in a job. And ALWAYS remember management may simply choose to ignore those processes and policies the instant they are inconvenient.

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Reposted by Durham UCU

Plashing Vole @plashingvole.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Very sorry to say that it was just one of many abusive events. Another was the uni admitting that a manager had faked probation documents and meeting records to justify a probation failure, but still terminating the member.

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Durham UCU @ducu.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

It shouldn't have, of course. The number of stories we have of HR teams violating their own procedures to help senior staff bully their subordinates are as numerous as they are enraging. Bully-via-HR is rife in UK universities.

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Durham UCU @ducu.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

This story shocked even us.

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Durham UCU @ducu.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

They didn't get away with it in the end, but the sheer brass neck of trying to force a colleague into abandoning their legal right rather than simply coordinating calendars is extremely telling about both that manager's arrogance, and their contempt for their staff.

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Durham UCU @ducu.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

It went like this (shared with permission of the reporting colleague). "Can you make times X or Y this week?" "Not both of us, no." One week later: "Can you make times A or B this week?" "Not both of us, no." "Then we'll just have to proceed without your union rep present."

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Durham UCU @ducu.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

This also applies to phone calls with senior management figures, which can also be used as a strategy to avoid witnesses/a paper trail.

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Durham UCU @ducu.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

This. This includes the tactic of being so inflexible with meeting dates that your caseworker can't attend (which we've seen reported elsewhere). Your legal rights trump their busy calendar and refusal to treat your own schedule with respect.

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University and College Union (UCU) @ucu.org.uk · 15/09/2026

The rain didn’t stop us. Today we stood proud against the University of Brighton’s outrageous threat to derecognise UCU. We will not let our members’ rights be trampled on. Like and share to stand with our members and send management a message: BACK DOWN.

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University and College Union (UCU) @ucu.org.uk · 14/09/2026

UCU members at Brighton University face the threat of derecognition. We have called an emergency rally tomorrow at 1:15pm. It would be amazing to see as many #TUC26 delegates as possible in attendance. 58-67 Grand Parade, Brighton and Hove, Brighton BN2 0JY

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covucu.bsky.social @covucu.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

Another "achievement" for Coventry University: noted as an example of subsidiarisation meaning they're no longer required to provide gender pay gap figures across most of its entities. #ucu

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Durham UCU @ducu.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

It needs to be stressed that unis playing nice with the Far Right isn't just a doomed endeavour. It's one with actual consequences for students & staff. We're made to feel less respected, less valued, less *safe*. We see excellent colleagues resign over capitulations to the "free speech" of bigots.

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University and College Union (UCU) @ucu.org.uk · 07/09/2026

Staff cannot be made to pay for Scotland’s university funding crisis. No more job cuts. No more rising workloads. No more insecurity. Universities need proper public funding and a future that values the people who make them work. www.heraldscotland.com/news/2652345...

heraldscotland.com

Union says university solutions should not 'exploit' staff

University union leadership has backed calls to reform the sector’s funding model, while saying that sustainability should not be allowed to…

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Reposted by Durham UCU

Abdul El-Sayed @abdulelsayed.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

The labor movement gave us weekends, 8 hour work days, and ensured that our kids can go to school rather than work. Honored to fight for unions every day. Happy Labor Day to all those who have fought for a fairer economy in the richest country in the world.

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Durham UCU @ducu.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

"I would simply not regularly make decisions that then have to be hidden at all costs from the people who work for me."

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Durham UCU @ducu.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

Sometimes, I idly wonder how much better off this sector would be, if all the time university managers pour into hiding the ways they're not doing what they know they should be doing, went instead into doing what they know they should be doing.

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The UCU branch at De Montfort University Leicester @ucudmu.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

Solidarity with colleagues working the @ucu-ulster.bsky.social open day, whilst facing 450 redundancies. Anyone in the area, please stop by at 10am!

Photo of a UCU picket at the university of Ulster

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covucu.bsky.social @covucu.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

Dear University Alliance Lifetime Achievement Award? For CU’s VC? The university with the huge deficit, collapsing student numbers, hundreds of redundancies and 2,788 staff transferred to subsidiaries over 3 years? That Coventry? Right. Interesting award criteria you have there. Best, The staff

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Natacha @natacha.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

I have now been on strike for three months. This is the first time Goldsmiths UCU has had to start the new academic year with a strike. But I am proud of my colleagues for their action in protecting a great university.

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Durham UCU @ducu.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

Ah yes, the good ol' "You've got things wrong, but we're not going to tell you which things, or why we think they're wrong, so you're just going to have to stop talking about what's going on entirely" approach. A classic.

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Durham UCU @ducu.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

A year on, we can see the results. We somehow moved seamlessly from the idea the cuts wouldn't cause workload and stress increases, to the idea that we obviously have to realise addressing those workload and stress increases was going to be a multi-year effort.

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Durham UCU @ducu.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

...But that this trivially easy work hadn't already been done because the colleagues involved weren't motivated to improve efficiency. The feeling was we were being told we always *could* have done things better, but that it would take the fear of a reduced head count to motivate us to try.

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Durham UCU @ducu.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

To many colleagues, this felt doubly insulting - the implication was not just that their hard work and dedication wasn't ultimately necessary, and that the university could reorder itself to make that work unnecessary would be trivially easy...

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Durham UCU @ducu.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

Because, amazingly, figuring out how to reduce workload long term *is something that takes work to do*. The institution was simultaneously insisting we needed to lose staff *and* increase workload.

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Durham UCU @ducu.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

We didn't accept that these cuts were necessary in the first place, nor that it would be possible to make these cuts without increasing workloads elsewhere. Even accepting both of those ideas arguendo, though, the work to figure out how to make the cuts work HAD to happen BEFORE THE CUTS WERE MADE.

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Durham UCU @ducu.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

This is precisely what we predicted, and precisely what we said at the time: you cannot simply slash 10-15% of PS teams by cost first, and THEN figure out how reorganise so that the loss doesn't dangerously overload already exhausted and stressed staff.

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Durham UCU @ducu.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

When this was raised at a recent Board of Studies, they were told, in part, that they had to understand it had only been a year since "voluntary severance", so the new working methods that had been promised hadn't yet been fully determined/implemented.

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Durham UCU @ducu.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

These plans were then rewritten to give those tasked in implementing them an extra year, which is certainly good. That doesn't solve the underlying problem, though.

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Durham UCU @ducu.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

We know of at least one department which has been judged to have levels of stress across the board so high that unilaterally imposed plans for additional changes was judged "dangerous" by a recent report written by H&S representatives from the campus unions.

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Durham UCU @ducu.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

...Even while those admin teams are working harder than ever to try and get through the colossal amount of work they're being expected to do on a daily basis.

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Durham UCU @ducu.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

And from talking to colleagues over the last year, we're pretty sure those fears have been borne out in multiple contexts. Academics have had to take on additional admin roles on top of already overfilled plates to take pressure off admin teams who've found themselves significantly understaffed...

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