After last minute ACAS talks and an emergency Leeds UCU meeting on 24 February, a series of three UCU strikes at Leeds University have been called off. Management have made some concessions, including a new negotiations structure and a suspension of compulsory redundancies in the Faculty of Biological Sciences (FBS) until January 2011. This is something of a victory from a university management which unilaterally pulled out of ACAS talks a few weeks ago.
But the £35 million in cuts, around 10% of each department’s budget, remain. The mandate for action has been extended by four weeks, meaning the union can restart the strikes if the talks fail.
These gains have been won by the determined stand of UCU members. If the other campus unions, Unison and Unite, had joined in, much more could have been won.
There is a day of action against the cuts on 4 March, with a rally at 1pm in Victoria Gardens.
