General Meeting Thursday 30th January 2025

Motions proposed

Solidarity with Brunel, Dundee and Newcastle UCU

Proposed: Sean Wallis

UCL UCU notes that staff at three universities are facing wholesale redundancies.

  1. Brunel University of London has announced redundancies to “right-size our cost base” targeting savings of around £43m. The branch estimates the loss of 25% academics and 20-25% professional services colleagues through this exercise.
  2. The Principal at Dundee University resigned having announced a £25m deficit and threatening redundancies – after a 89% vote of no confidence, management continues to evade questions around the origin and sudden development of the financial crisis.
  3. Newcastle University management has announced 300 job losses to save £50m.

UCU branches at all three institutions are currently balloting for industrial action, and may need to take significant strike action to stop the cuts.

UCL UCU believes that these three disputes are important battles for the whole union. The employers will be watching what happens.

However, the absence of a national fightback by UCU reduces pressure on government bodies to step in to stop the cuts.

UCL UCU resolves

  1. To send messages of solidarity to all three branches.
  2. To pledge to donate £3,500 to the hardship funds of each of the three branches if they strike.
  3. To invite speakers from these branches to future UCU meetings.
  4. To advertise public meetings, events and protests organised by these branches.
  5. To call on UCU to launch a UK-wide campaign over pay and jobs that can put pressure on government.
Statute 18 Disciplinary ‘Reform’ Proposals

Proposed: Saladin Meckled-Garcia

UCL UCU notes

UCL HR and senior management are putting forward proposals to limit the use of Statute 18 Disciplinary Tribunals so as to eliminate them from all but a small number of cases, and these proposals are expected to be put before Academic Board and Council.

Statute 18 Tribunals are currently mandatory for all academic staff for serious allegations that may lead to dismissal (“gross misconduct allegations”). For other staff, gross misconduct Hearings and Appeals are heard by three senior managers. 

HR’s key proposal is that only cases which explicitly refer to Academic Freedom are taken via Statute 18 Tribunals.

These Tribunals are more costly and time-consuming for UCL than ordinary disciplinary hearings, because staff are entitled to be legally represented. UCL engages two barristers, one to prosecute and one to advise Panels, and a member of Council must sit on the Tribunal. Appeals are heard by independent senior lawyers.

UCL cites the slower speed and adversarial nature of hearings as grounds for changing the process, and argue that the current situation is unfair to complainants, who may wait a long time for allegations to be heard.

UCL UCU further notes

Statute 18 paragraph 1 and the Higher Education and Research Act section 2(8) both specify that Academic Freedom is not limited to free speech, but the freedom “to question and test received wisdom”, i.e. conduct research, as well as teaching that may challenge received wisdom.

Research funders and professional bodies have recently adopted policies which permit them to place longer additional restrictions on staff where complaints of bullying and harassment are upheld by employers. Where staff are dismissed for alleged sexual harassment, this is likely to amount to a total ban. Where staff are warned but not dismissed, these bans typically outlast the period of the warning.

In 2009 the Appeal Court determined that where allegations against a doctor (and by extension, staff in other professions) risked making their ban from future employment likely, they were entitled to legal representation in the employer’s disciplinary hearing.

That Academic Board passed a motion at its October 2024 meeting demanding that the due process protections of Statute 18 be extended to all academic workers (i.e. on teaching, research and teaching+research contracts).

UCL UCU believes

That anyone who raises a complaint is entitled for it to be properly investigated, and protected from victimisation for raising it. But rights of complainants are not a tradeoff for the rights of the accused.

That we must both defend existing protections and extend them to other staff.

That the trade unions, in both representing members of staff across UCL in different staff groups and supporting complainants and accused alike in hearings, have a key role to play in encouraging the widest possible debate.

UCL UCU resolves

To campaign against the HR/management proposals with a dedicated page on our website.

To call an open Town Hall meeting to discuss and debate HR/management’s proposed changes, and potential counter proposals.

To bring the results of this consultation back to a future branch meeting.


For a UK-wide campaign for pay and jobs

Proposed: Sean Wallis

UCL UCU notes 

  1. The UK Higher Education sector is facing a major financial crisis brought about by two factors:
    1. The 2011 tuition fee market system encouraging large-scale capital projects where universities expanded in competition with each other.  
    2. Falling real terms value of home ug tuition fee income, and an increasing dependence on overseas student fee income.
  2. The specific trigger for redundancies in many universities has been increasing Government costs on universities and restrictions on overseas students.
  3. UCU HEC has voted to launch a UK-wide campaign over the need for a fully-funded sector, and to run a national ballot over pay in order to permit branches to take action together. 
  4. Whereas it is not possible to take lawful industrial action across the sector over job losses, we can take industrial action over pay in order to put pressure on Government to fund the sector properly.
  5. The Labour Government is currently reviewing the funding of UK Higher Education, with Bridget Phillipson MP expected to report in May-June. 
  6. UNISON members at many universities, including UCL, have begun to ballot members over the 2024 pay claim. 

UCL UCU believes 

  1. We need to rebuild the confidence of members to unite across the sector to defend pay and jobs after the 2023 dispute.
  2. We have a limited window of opportunity to influence Labour before expenditure is set for the rest of the lifetime of this government.

UCL UCU resolves to

  1. Pledge £3,000 to UCL UNISON’s hardship fund if their members take strike action of face pay deductions for action short of strike.
  2. Call on UCU to immediately launch their campaign for a fully-funded sector.
  3. Support branches taking industrial action over redundancies.
  4. Organise to win an industrial action ballot over pay if it is called.