Update for members following joint-union APR meeting with the COO and Director of HR (April 2024)
Proposed Non-Staff Savings
At the most recent APR meeting we were informed of the ‘Phase Two’ proposals for non-staff savings, as follows:
1. Pausing the academic promotions round for 2024-25
2. Pausing re-grading for professional services 2024-25
3. Strictly applying the policy for departing staff to take annual leave
4. Removing the YSJ-funded BHSF Cash Plan from February 2025
5. Removing internal catering for staff-only activity
6. Reviewing insurance arrangements to reduce unnecessary cost
All six of these proposals are under review with Union feedback due before May 20th. The estimated savings for implementing these proposals is c.£565k. This is in addition to the other non-staff savings already in progress: budget centralisation, reviewing procurement contracts, ‘scrutiny’ on staff recruitment and future vacancies. There will be an impact assessment for each proposal (some are likely to halt any progress on reducing the Gender Pay Gap), and there was at least some recognition of likely negative impact on staff health (although only when we pointed this out), as well as well-being, morale, and student experience. We can discuss these proposals at next week’s branch meeting: Wednesday 24th on Teams at 1pm – an invitation will be sent out shortly. We made it clear that pushing forward with any of these proposals is only acceptable if EB provides concrete reassurances that they are doing everything in their power to avoid compulsory redundancies (we are not reassured of this at present).
Redundancies
Senior management still refuse to rule out compulsory redundancies, although they have agreed to reflect on the demand from both unions that enhanced terms for a voluntary severance scheme are offered (otherwise, there is no incentive for voluntary redundancy and compulsory redundancy is more likely). We were clear that our UCU branch sees a failure to take CR off the table as a signal to begin organising a ballot for strike action (see below under ‘Action’). We urge all members to ensure they participate in this, and further, that they talk to their unionised colleagues to ensure they participate, and to suggest to their non-unionised colleagues that now is the time to join us. We do not have to accept the continued cycle of redundancies and consequent excessive workloads. In addition, the employer’s current position on VS is unjustified and out of step with other universities in the region, such as Sheffield Hallam, Bradford, and Leeds Beckett who are offering much better voluntary severance terms. YSJ is even out of step with previous policy; for example, we know that the University saved £1m through a VS scheme back in 2020, where 14 members of staff took the enhanced package on offer.
Last Friday, Directors and Heads of School submitted to EB ideas informing ‘Phase Three’ of the APR, where non-staff and staff-savings are being earmarked. Unfortunately, we were given no further information about the contents of these submissions, even though some members are already having meetings as subject teams to discuss how cost saving measures requested by HoS are to be achieved. We continue to press management for details on this and we expect to learn more about precisely what staff-savings are being considered in the coming weeks. We must admit to growing increasingly frustrated with the lack of transparency surrounding ‘Phase Three’, including when the identification of areas for redundancy have been identified. We pointed out that at no stage in the formative proceedings senior management sought to consult with all staff, not just unions, about the criteria for identifying staff-savings. In other branches, the lack of all staff consultation is part of a tribunal claim brought by staff made redundant.
After questioning the COO and HR on their silence regarding scrutiny of middle and senior management roles in redundancy scoping, they confirmed for the first time that staff/roles from all levels of the University will be looked at for staff-savings. However, we remain sceptical as to whether conversations informing the APR 24/25 include Executive Board and Senior Leadership Team positions, not least their excessive pay. In particular, they have recently announced their intention to appoint an additional person to SLT in a role focusing on knowledge exchange. The average SLT member salary is £85k, and they are making this appointment when those providing essential teaching and support are fearing for their jobs. We will, therefore, be submitting a paper to the Remuneration Committee – where EB and SLT salaries are decided – demanding that we see reduced pay for the university’s highest earners and a consolidation of roles at EB and SLT level. Despite it being an obvious proposition from a moral and a mathematical point of view – to start reductions with the highest paid managers before cutting lower paid staff – we are told the Union must draw up the business case! Not only that, the Remuneration Committee meets after the end of the APR process; hence, senior management need to look at our proposals as a matter of urgency or risk growing the perception that they are protecting their own interests at the expense of frontline staff.
When pushed on the above timing of the Remuneration Committee, we were told that, although savings will be identified during the APR, which runs from February to late May, the savings themselves will take effect over a longer period (up to April 2025), potentially through multiple rounds of redundancies. We are yet to know for certain how many ‘waves’ of redundancies they are seeking to run and which staff might fall within each one.
We do not know exactly when senior management will issue a Section 188 to both UCU and UNISON branches. What we do know is that anti-trade union legislation prevents union branches from responding quickly to sudden developments, so we need to mobilise now in anticipation of redundancy notices. It was only through an active and mobilised branch that Northumbria and Aberdeen managed successfully to take compulsory redundancies off the table all together. Therefore, the UCU branch exec is proposing to begin an electronic consultative ballot soon to ascertain levels of support for taking action should our employer behave rashly and without conscience. In last week’s branch meeting we took an indicative vote for such action in principle, which received unanimous support.
Action
Pressure from the branch is forcing management to rethink. We need to continue to show our collective strength. We urge members to vote yes to strike action on key dates in the academic calendar and yes to action short of a strike in the form of working to contract. A six month mandate period will take us beyond what may be a first round of redundancies, so we have an opportunity to say no to any additional workload that arises from reductions in staffing. There will not be excessive pay loss resulting from our action, and we have established a hardship fund for members. But we need our action to be disruptive and high profile enough for the public to realise what is happening to us and the sector. For too long now, decision makers at York St John – many of whom have taken senior management positions at the university after previously working in sectors with proven records of a smash and grab approach, where staff inevitably bear the brunt of perpetual restructures, asset stripping and weakening of terms and conditions – have acted with impunity. Senior managers in HE today use the destruction of frameworks for improved pay and conditions as a badge of honour to parade in job interviews. You all know that Post-92 universities have provided life-changing, and life affirming experiences for generations of working class students – this is what motivates us. Our universities are being destroyed by a serious lack of imagination. They are not vehicles to produce economic units; they are vehicles for expanding minds and opportunities. Those who manage universities need to realise the difference between efficiencies and education. How long are we willing to endure the cyclical pattern of redundancies, each one squeezing the remaining staff even more and weakening the student experience, thereby underwriting further staff cuts later down the line. Where is long term, joined-up thinking? Where is the meaningful staff-wide communication? It has disappeared as Senior Managers have turned inward, talking only to each other and finding encouragement for their regressive neoliberal vision for the sector. There has been no indication of any foresight from senior management about the current challenges enveloping the sector despite inflation reaching its peak in October 2022, the tuition fee crisis being a ticking time bomb for years, and the fact the Tory government have been on a death drive to make immigration politically untenable.
None of this is inevitable; in fact, there might be an element of opportunism at play. A recent article published by YSJ’s COO in the Oxford Review of Education presents an ideological vision of small post-92 institutions that is more dystopian than utopian: universities with the ‘institutional autonomy’ to set staff pay and tuition fees, withdraw from national pension schemes, expand fixed-term and zero-hours contracts, cheapen the value of a degree, hire staff through agencies, skirt regulations, phase out the arts and social sciences, reduce reliance on home undergraduates, do away with the post-92 contract by introducing a two-tier system for teaching and research, and pursue mergers with FE institutions and for-profit firms. These measures are proposed in the name of making the university more ‘financially sustainable’ and ‘competitive’ in a market setting, effectively promoting further privatisation and marketisation of higher education. Let’s fight back together and say to the employer: NO more cuts, no to slash and burn; YES to nurturing, growing and developing our students and our universities.
In solidarity,
YSJUCU Exec