higher education walkouts
WORKERS, JUNE 2005 ISSUE
LECTURERS AT London Metropolitan University (LMU) walked out for a week last month in protest against the university's attempt to impose, under threat of dismissal, new contracts. LMU is an amalgamation of the former University of North London with the former London Guildhall University, and the new contract is an attempt to impose the inferior North London contract on former Guildhall staff — despite assurances at the time of the merger that the Guildhall contract would apply to all staff.
According to NATFHE, almost all its 700 members at the university took part, and were even joined by around 300 non-members. The dispute has the wholehearted support of the Association of University Teachers (AUT). The local student union executive has also given unanimous backing to the lecturers.
And as Workers went to press, lecturers at 13 further education colleges were due to walk out on 25 May. The lecturers are fighting to get the full terms of the pay deal drawn up in 2003 between NATFHE and the employers' body, the Association of Colleges. Their increases should have come through 10 months ago.
Meanwhile, the AUT has threatened to bring Glasgow University to a standstill if the employer decides to lay off staff. As many as 250 jobs across all faculties could go, as part of 'staff savings' and the university has refused to rule out compulsory redundancies. 150 jobs were lost by voluntary redundancy in 2002.
There is a similar threat to another college in Scotland. West Lothian College in Livingston is starting a process of shedding jobs through voluntary redundancies or early retirement. Staff have reacted angrily to the move, which comes less than a year after Sue Pinder, the college principal, saw her salary and pension package boosted by more than £30,000. According to the college's 2003—4 accounts, her basic salary for the year was £97,000 — up £26,000 on the year before. In addition, contributions to her pension scheme were increased from £4,000 to £10,000.
About 250 people work at West Lothian College, which moved from its previous base in Bathgate to a new campus in Livingston in July 2001. The £17.8 million site was funded through a Private Finance Initiative (PFI). Just a year after its official opening, it emerged that the college was making 13 members of staff redundant in order to cut costs. By then the college was already £844,000 in debt, and struggling to meet its annual PFI bill of £1.1 million. How many other colleges could be dragged down by PFI payments?