UEA UCU is in dispute with UEA management over their plans to cut 190 staff in 2025 to manage a, £11m budget deficit. These cuts are in addition savings made from non-pay budgets. The cuts are wide-ranging and aggressive. According to the business case published in November (2024), management intends to cut at least 30 staff in the Faculty of Medicine & Health Sciences, 25 in the Faculty of Science, 22 in the Faculty of Arts & Humanities, and at least 90 from departments across professional services at the institution.
This dispute follows over 400 staff leaving UEA in 2023 due to management’s projected £40m deficit in that year.
The dispute has three key elements which include: (1) removing the threat of compulsory redundancies, (2) financial accountability, and (3) transparent governance.
The ballot for action was open from 14th Jan – 4th Feb 2025, and the membership, with a record turnout of 67%, voted overwhelmingly in favour of strike action as well as action short of strike (ASOS). While dispute resolution meetings continued, a Day of Action was called on 26th March 2025 as a show of solidarity and to demonstrate the depth of feeling against compulsory redundancies as well as the need for institutional changes to governance and financial transparency and planning.
In April members voted to escalate action to take further strike action against the compulsory redundancies. Members are willing to take nine days of action to save their colleagues’ job. The strike will start on the 1st of May 2025. Read the branch statement on this escalation.
Find out more about how you can support this action.
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