Newcastle University UCU Branch Newsletter – July 2026
A Beacon of Solidarity
Around 30 UCU branches are courageously resisting the employers’ offensive in Higher Education: educational provision is being slashed, staff forced into subsidiary companies to save on pensions, courses and departments closed. Solidarity across the sector is more important than ever. Our branch donates to strike funds and sends messages of support and we urge you to reach out to colleagues at other institutions to express your solidarity.
You can make a difference: Twin with a Branch in Dispute.
A rep in HCA set up a collection pot and asked HCA colleagues to donate to Nottingham University UCU’s strike fund. A former PhD student at Newcastle now a historian at Nottingham had got in touch. Nottingham University has put 2500 at risk of redundancy, looking to lose 700 jobs. Nottingham University UCU are striking for 61 days in response to 100% deductions for a marking boycott. History is one the subjects being decimated. £585 was raised in a week.
As we learned last year, solidarity from other branches is essential for morale and financially to take the kind of action needed to win. This is exactly the kind of solidarity that can turn the tide against the employers. Well done to those colleagues who contributed.
You could set up a collection pot in your section to collect donations to support members in similar sections elsewhere, or make a picket visit if you’re close by! There are many disciplines under fire: physics, music, modern languages, English, etc. Other branches taking a lot of action include Goldsmiths, London Met, Dundee, London South Bank. Pick one where you have friends or where the cuts are hitting your subject areas.
With political uncertainty locally and nationally after the May elections and Starmer’s statement that he will stand down, we need to use the time to make the case for Higher Education.
You can do your bit.
Write to your MP, and urge local councillors to take access to HE seriously, and not to accept universities going bankrupt. There is briefing material on our website that we will be adding to.
Circulate the petitions around people in your department, school or unit.
Support London Met UCU Against University Privatisation
Sheffield Hallam University https://c.org/wHkT9nvShv
Exeter University https://c.org/MqxwdRfhFS
UCU has declared an academic boycott of Sheffield University calling on all members, trade unionists, and supporters to refuse to: speak at or organise academic or other conferences at University of Sheffield; give lectures at University of Sheffield; accept positions as visiting professors or researchers at University of Sheffield; accept new contracts as external examiners for taught courses at University of Sheffield.
Newcastle University’s Finances: More Cuts on the Way?
After last academic year’s long dispute over redundancies and workload, we have had a year of comparative calm. Higher Education in England has a regulatory, funding and ideological architecture that the Conservative and Coalition governments bequeathed. It locks universities into financial rather than educational targets and treats students as consumers rather than learners. Voices in the political mainstream are attacking entire academic disciplines, the value of a university education and the council election results amplified the arguments against universities and migrant workers. Two reports last month underlined the precarious and contradictory situation of higher education in the UK. The Education Select Committee’s report on the impact of international students on university finances and highlight the possibility of a university going insolvent. The latest Office for Students financial sustainability report also flagged up the increasing numbers of universities making deficits but also the considerable variation in ‘performance’ across the sector. The wave of the redundancies is not justified financially in all but the exceptional cases like Dundee and restructuring programmes come at a huge cost (£218m last year).
The White Paper on post-16 education has a dearth of new thinking, offering a further instrumentalisation of education for government priorities such as defence (note that the university signed up to the Universities Defence Alliance), encouraging specialisation and reorganisation. British Academy research shows that with more students living at home education provision is already being lost in regional at risk and cold spot disciplines.
For years now, the branch has taken scrutiny of the university’s financial situation seriously. We are organising a (catered) training session for reps (and interested members) on university finances on 22 July, 1-3pm in the union office (please let us know if you would like to attend). We effectively argued that the redundancies were not justified financially during the dispute last year and formulated workable employee counter-proposals to avoid redundancies. In terms of the annual calendar, next year’s budget is being approved at Council on 6 July and the campus unions meet with the finance director Nick Collins on 27 July to survey the budget summary. Ultimately, at every university whether there will be cuts next year depends upon the student numbers in August and September and the contingency planning in the budget. Newcastle University remains cash rich and has a good borrowing profile so it could withstand greater shocks than many other universities.
Workload and Health and Safety
We have put our commentary on the university’s new sickness absence policy which we believe could be used to monitor stress-related illness as a guide to understanding where to mitigate for work-related stress. We still wait for the university’s long-promised workload and wellbeing survey.
Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) ‘TUPE’ of the Clinical Research Facility
We are representing 9 staff of the in FMS who are being transferred to the NHS. Last week staff were notified that by 1 August they would be transferred to the NHS as their employer. Obviously this is a stressful situation and we have had to reassert the statutory right to collective representation on their part when management have tried to suggest that consultations could be done as one to ones. Encourage your colleagues to join a union. We can protect their rights.
Psychological Therapies Training and Research Clinic
We have reached out to the Students’ Union about the proposed closure of the PTTRC that counsels around 400 students a year, for those who would otherwise have to join long NHS mental health waiting lists. It is notable that the new Chief Executive of the Office for Students is Edward Peck who was Chair of the Higher Education Mental Health Implementation Taskforce. Given OfS and public scrutiny on mental health and specifically suicide prevention amongst students, the closure of the PTTRC seems a short-sighted move.
Women against the Far Right
The successful Newcastle launch meeting took place on Thursday with representation from the branch. If anyone wishes to work on this issue please contact the branch office ucu.office@ncl.ac.uk
Thank you to our equality officers and migrant members group for their work on these issues.
The Durham Miners’ Gala, Saturday 11 July
The city of Durham hosts the UK largest trade union annual gathering, the Durham Miners Gala, which first took place in 1871. It is a truly spectacular event. There will be delegation from the branch and our banner will be present. Hope to see you there.
Durham University UCU branch is organising a trade union educational event on the afternoon of 10 July if anyone is interested.