Higher Education - Tribunal backs lecturers
WORKERS, JAN 2006 ISSUE
On 7 December an employment tribunal ruled in favour of members of Natfhe, the university and college lecturers' union, who claimed unfair dismissal from London Metropolitan University (LMU). The claim, brought by 23 lecturers, was that they were unfairly dismissed after LMU imposed a new contract on 387 academic staff in order to "harmonise" terms and conditions after the institution was created via a merger of London Guildhall University and the University of North London.
On 2 April 2004 LMU issued dismissal notices to 387 members of academic staff who were previously employed by London Guildhall. The lecturers were told that their silence would be treated as acceptance of the ex-North London contract. Of those 387, 23 pursued a claim for unfair dismissal. The contracts row sparked a 16-month dispute between Natfhe and the university, which was concluded in the union's favour in Summer 2005.
Roger Kline, Natfhe's head of universities said; "We welcome the tribunal' s decision that our members were unfairly dismissed following the merger of the two universities . Natfhe has always argued this was the case and if only the university had agreed to sit down and talk with us on how this process should have been handled, a damaging 16-month dispute could have been avoided."