Link to this page: http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/issue/479/2207
From The Socialist newspaper, 22 March 2007
Fight university job cuts
JOB LOSSES at Manchester university are being resisted by "angry and affronted" staff. These 400 job cuts will affect lecturers, researchers and administrative and other low-paid staff.
Hugh Caffrey
Dave Beale, lecturers' union, UCU, press officer told the socialist: "Union members are overwhelmingly angry and affronted at the redundancies especially in light of the university's ambitious expansion and building programme."
Management claim that because of the merger with UMIST, the resulting £30 million deficit can only be covered by cutting jobs. But when hundreds of millions of pounds have been spent on the merger, new buildings and "celebrity" lecturers, how can any competent management fail to find £30 million?
Within two years every undergraduate will pay £3,000 a year for the privilege of their education. Multiply £3,000 by the tens of thousands of students, plus many £10,000 international fees.
Bosses claim the redundancies will all be voluntary but staff doubt this. And there will be an increased workload for staff and a worse service for students.
This will be an important dispute for the whole Higher Education sector. Over 2,300 staff form the biggest UCU branch in the country. University bosses are drawn directly from the top axe-wielding echelons of the private sector.
Send protests and support letters to: UCU office, Williamson Building, Manchester University, Oxford Rd., Manchester, M13 9PL. Email ucu@manchester.ac.uk
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In The Socialist 22 March 2007:
Labour's NHS plans: not what the doctors ordered!
Divisive forgery shocks health campaign
War and terrorism
Blair (and Tories) get their Trident vote
Socialist Party campaigns
May Day greetings - support the socialist
Keep the market out of education!
International Socialist Resistance
Socialist Party news and analysis
Passenger protests force some improvements
Budget: Who are the real scroungers?
Socialist Party women's day school a success
What we think
Private equity deals - fight free-market vultures
Marxist analysis: history
How was the slave trade abolished?
International socialist news and analysis
Rifondazione Comunista - its future?
"Bush out of Iraq and Lula out of Haiti"
Greece: The struggle to defend free education
Workplace news and analysis
Burslem postal workers continue the fight
Greenwich single status scandal
TUC try to cut conference childcare provision
Lobby for migrant workers' rights
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