It’s a new year, and we have a new phase of negotiations between the University of Edinburgh and its staff after hundreds took action last year against the threat of compulsory redundancies and a proposed £140m budget cut.
After nine strike days, talks finally began in December between the University and the University and College Union (UCU). The result was a deal, with the University agreeing to halt any compulsory redundancies until July 2026, notably without amending their proposed staff budget cuts. In return, the UCU agreed to pause any more strike action until the end of April.
Plans to cut the University’s staff budget will instead be implemented through a voluntary severance scheme, which offers staff a “mutually agreed” departure from the University. There were also agreements to freeze any external recruitment, enhance deployment offers, and, most importantly, the University promised to consult the UCU about any organisational change in the University that may affect staff.
Although these negotiations appear progressive, the deal was only “narrowly accepted by members” of the Union. Therefore, distrust and unease remain around the University’s proposed concessions, with many staff sceptical about their employer’s promises.
Sophia Woodman, for example, a member of Edinburgh’s UCU, stated that the University has continued to pursue job cuts despite recent negotiations, citing hundreds of “hidden redundancies” enforced by the non-renewal of fixed-term contracts and cuts to guaranteed hours budgets.
Staff employed on these contracts are typically PhD tutors teaching undergraduate courses. Woodman commented that losing this collective of staff through a reduction in “guaranteed hours contracts” is “extremely damaging from the student perspective”. This concerns first- and second-year students particularly, who often have PhD students tutoring their courses, making these staff their first port of call for academic advice.
The Student spoke with a member of staff in the School of Literature, Languages and Cultures in the context of these “hidden redundancies” raised by Woodman. She told The Student “many PhD students working as GH tutors depend on this income either to finance part of their studies or simply to make ends meet.”
Therefore, “not renewing fixed-term contracts and reducing GH (guaranteed hours) tutor hours is incredibly short-sighted. With no institutional support, and hence no access to library resources, career opportunities, and no opportunities to gain experience, many will choose, post PhD, to leave academia…This leaves me wondering: what is the long-term future of humanities academia if there is zero investment in young talent?”
With these supposed “hidden” staff cuts, the University’s promise to protect its staff appears to be a false assurance. With the University showing no sign of negotiating its proposed staff budget cuts, will compulsory redundancies simply be postponed until after July, when the University’s deal runs out?
As UCU General Secretary Jo Grady said, “It is clear that in Edinburgh the battle is far from over, and that members remain suspicious of their employer.”
With an agreement on the ending of strikes being dated just before the Universities’ exam period, Grady went on to say that “the branch does have a strong mandate for further action or even a marking and assessment boycott, should the employer back track on its side of this deal.”
Although, for now negotiations seem to be paving way to progress, under the surface of these agreements, the University-UCU relationship continues to be shaped by precarious promises and false protection. A small battle may have been won with a halt on compulsory redundancies, but it appears the war is far from over.
Photograph by Leah Collins for The Student