Staff at the University of Edinburgh have backed strike action over proposed cuts of £140m over the next 18 months.
With a turnout of nearly two-thirds, 84 per cent of University and College Union (UCU) Scotland members backed strike action.
This could mean staff not covering for absent colleagues or refusing to mark work.
Staff at the University went on strike in 2023 with lectures cancelled and marking boycotts seeing some graduating students left without degrees for months.
The cuts – a response to the financial pressures caused by inflation, plateauing international student numbers, and real terms government funding falling – could see the closure of programmes, mergers of schools, and staff redundancies.
UCU Edinburgh have long maintained that senior management at the University being justified by a “manufactured crisis” with the University’s financial position far stronger than suggested.
They say any staff cuts represent a strategic restructuring of the University, not a response to financial hardships.
“University’s staffing has grown dramatically at a time when our student numbers are actually flat or even slightly down,” Principal Sir Peter Mathieson told The Student in March, defending the prospect of redundancies. “We’ve seen this expansion of our expenditure at a time when our income is threatened, and that becomes not sustainable.
“…By definition [the cuts] are proactive… Probably 70 per cent of UK universities are in deficit. We’re not one of them.
“…By taking actions now, we can ensure our future from a position of strength, not from a position of weakness.”
Mathieson added: “We must make sure we are not the next Dundee,” referencing the near-collapse of the Scottish university.
With staff costs accounting for 58 per cent of university spending, Mathieson says that “if we’re going to save expenditures, we have to include looking at our staff costs.”
He did express regret that when staff strike in response to management decisions, students are “caught in the crossfire of a dispute that’s not their making.”
The University of Edinburgh has £3bn worth of assets including their estate and portfolio of investment. This has rapidly increased in value over the past few years.
The University Senate said the “measures currently being taken, and proposed, to implement rapid, large-scale cuts to the University’s expenditure are harmfully impacting research, teaching and the student experience, as well as staff morale and wellbeing.”
On Tuesday 20 May, the Senate passed a no-confidence vote in executive management’s handling of finances.
Reflecting on the vote to strike, UCU general secretary, Jo Grady, said: “Edinburgh University is hugely respected with a hard-won reputation for academic excellence,”
“The principal now needs to heed the repeated warnings given by staff and reverse these cuts, or he’s going to go down as the man who took a wrecking ball to the university’s five hundred-year history and left it in a worse state than when he was appointed.”
Speaking to The Student in March, Member of Parliament for Edinburgh East and Musselburgh said he didn’t think redundancies were necessary and he was “very inclined” to support the unions in strike action.
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