Solidarity from the National Shop Steward Network for your ongoing dispute and strike action. As a fellow UCU member, I strongly believe an injury to one is an injury to all, and the rest of the union should be fully behind your dispute. – Bea Gardner, National Shop Steward Network

 

We are sorry not to be with you in person today but want to send the strongest possible message of solidarity to your members for the demonstration. We have been inspired by your tenacity and determination in taking on these vicious job cuts. This is an absolutely crucial fight in the battle for a higher education system in crisis. Best wishes. – Anne Alexander, Communications Officer Cambridge UCU

 

UWS UCU sends its full solidarity to Newcastle and all the other branches being hit by these devastating cuts. UWS is at the beginning of a redundancy battle and while this period is full of anger and anxiety, it is heartening to see branches organise to come together in solidarity and to coordinate a national response. The best chance we have of fighting this is by linking the fights and continually making the argument for a fully funded sector. University staff should not have to pay the price for years of financial mismanagement and poor planning. We are in this together – solidarity to all! – Katy Highet, Vice President University of West Scotland UCU

 

From the University of Bedfordshire’s branch we send you our comrades at Newcastle our best wishes of solidarity! You are standing for yourselves and for us all! – Ana Redondo, Chair Bedfordshire UCU

 

Huge solidarity to you all at today’s national demo from the UCU branch at Imperial College London.   These are dangerous times for everyone who works in higher education. The fighting spirit and determination of UCU members at Newcastle is an example to those who are facing job cuts at many other universities. We are sorry we were unable to send a delegation to today’s protest, but hope that it can be a launchpad for a UK-wide fight against the jobs massacre in HE. It’s time for our union to unite and fight across the sector, not just to defend jobs, but to demand investment in books not bombs and the future of our universities and education as a public good. In solidarity. – Roddy Slorach, Secretary Imperial UCU

Having lived through this kind of attack from our Liverpool management, I deeply sympathise with your experience and support your fight. – Judith Carter, Liverpool UCU

 

York St John UCU sends solidarity to everyone at the Newcastle demo! For every branch fighting redundancy, your fight is our fight. We went through this last year and are under no illusions that we won’t suffer it again – unless we all fight back together. Newcastle UCU, thank you for standing up for Higher Education!! Solidarity – YSJ UCU Executive

 

Solidarity from Fightin’ Brighton! Sorry that we can’t join you in person today. Your fight against job cuts is an inspiration. It is clear that we need fighting branches like yours. We are bombarded daily with stories about staff costs being too high, student fees being too low, and the “inevitability” of cuts. But there is nothing inevitable about cuts. Cuts are only inevitable if we accept them! But if we fight against cuts, we find that they were not ‘inevitable’ after all. At Brighton, we undertook a sustained strike against compulsory redundancies in 2023. There are lots of similarities between our situation then, and yours now. One similarity is the fact that the proposed savings that the university claimed were “needed” represented only a tiny fraction of the University’s operating budget. The destructive move to make mass job cuts to save a tiny % of annual budget was clearly way out of proportion and totally unnecessary. A second similarity is the pursuit of compulsory redundancies, even after accepting masses of voluntary severances. At Brighton, university management publicly stated they wanted 80-97 jobs to be cut. 82 staff left through voluntary severance – meeting that target. Yet management then stated that they needed a further 22 compulsory redundancies. This would actually exceed the top of their target range! This leads us to the third similarity. If the compulsory redundancies were not financially necessary, then why would the University pursue them? The answer is simple: management want to smash Newcastle UCU. Your VC is chair of the Russell Group. Our VC was chair of ‘University Alliance’ (an equivalent grouping for post-92 universities). The Chair of University Alliance took on the UCU branch at her own University, to try to show that they could force even a strong, fighting branch like Brighton to back down. The same is happening at Newcastle. The Chair of Russell Group is coming after you because you are a strong, fighting branch. He wants to make an example of you. But here’s the fourth similarity. You will not back down! Your students will continue to support you. You will all maintain the fight for as long as you need to. At Brighton we took 129 days of continual strike action. It can be done. And let’s predict a fifth similarity. Our VC is gone! She could not stay in place. She failed in her aim. She never broke the branch. We are still here. She’s not. You can see yours out too! You are an inspiration to workers everywhere. Your fight is of course about saving the jobs of your colleagues, saving courses, saving your university. But let nobody be in any doubt. Your fight is about more than Newcastle. It’s a fight for the future of Higher Education. It’s for everyone across the UK. From Brighton to Newcastle, solidarity! – Ryan, Chair Brighton UCU

 

Huge solidarity Newcastle UCU! Congratulations to branch lay officers, staff and members for fighting back!  We are all admiring your strength, your resolve, your fighting spirit in response to the appalling management plans for 300 redundancies, voluntary or otherwise.  Any such job losses will have a profound effect to our working class students, the city and the region. Thank you also to members who joined this rally from across the UK.  Together, across post-16 education,  we need to ensure that the failed Higher Education funding model changes. Post-16 education staff deserve job security and our full collective support, so that our students, our regions, across the four nations, benefit from quality education. I am really sorry I cannot be with you today. You have my full support.  Unless management plans change, I will join you in the forthcoming days. Because… Whose University? Certainly, OUR University. Solidarity! – Dr Maria Chondrogianni, President UCU

 

I am so sorry I cannot be there tomorrow  I wish you strength and sunshine as you protest.  Thank you for what you are doing – change (of a positive nature) has to come, and the fight is worth it. – Lucia Llano Puertas, University of Westminster

 

RHUL UCU stands in awe of the determination of your members to fight these damaging proposals in defense of good jobs for your members and the wider community, for students’ right to an excellent, varied  education and for HE in general. We thank you for the model that you set for branch activism and for the example you set of working with neighbouring branches to share experience and resources. You fight for yourselves, you fight for all our children, you fight for all of us. Solidarity. – Donna Brown, Vice Chair Royal Holloway University London UCU

 

Your determination to fight off the redundancies faced by your members is inspirational and heroic. We know the importance of the work your members do – in the classroom and outside – to make Newcastle, and the wider world, a better and more interesting place. We also know that university managers around the UK are more than willing to sacrifice jobs rather than own up to their own mismanagement and poor financial decisions. This seems to continue at Newcastle – they want to cut staff due to a shortfall is students, but they also want to build new student accommodation… we’re not sure that story adds up. An injury to one is an injury to all. – Bee, Branch Secretary of Liverpool John Moores University UCU

 

I would love to be in Newcastle but can’t because of Parliamentary commitments.  I am, however with you in spirit and  be  in no doubt you have my 100% support for your sadly necessary industrial action. As a life long trade unionist and former President of the NUM, I know first hand that union members only go on strike when there is no alternative in a struggle for fair and just treatment by employers and your struggles are a proof of that proposition.  Over the last few years you have had to fight for your pension rights, fight against casualisation of labour and now for your very livelihood.  I would go so far as to say the UCU is at the forefront of working class resistance. The old but not forgotten Clause 4 of the Labour Party Constitution stated that the aim of the Party was to “secure for Workers by hand or by brain the full fruits of their labour” and I still believe in those words. Although you work in laboratories and lecture theatres you are such  workers, no different in your employment position than anyone in manual labour.  Your strike needs unwavering support and I call on all of my fellow Labour MPs and all trade unionists to get behind you. The UK’s future very much depends on having a strong and thriving higher education sector, but that is being hampered by a broken funding system of which you the victims.  This needs urgent repair or the whole country will suffer as we cannot be prepared for the industries of the future without you. It is madness to think we can expect the best academics to stay in the UK or to come here from abroad with headlines screaming job cuts and insecurity.  Moreover, how do you attract foreign university students with an offering of fewer courses and larger class sizes in courses taught by over worked and undervalued lecturers. The Secretary of State for Education must bring this dangerous lunacy to an end without delay. Finally, stay strong and don’t give up the fight! – Ian Lavery, MP for Blyth and Ashington

 

Solidarity from our branch. We will be in the middle of a ballot over hybrid working proposals, and if the ballot is successful, we will join the ranks of branches taking action this summer.  Branches like yours have been a huge inspiration to us! – Peta Bulmer, Secretary University of Liverpool & Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine UCU

 

Cambridge UCU sends full and wholehearted solidarity to your branch in fighting back against horrendous job cuts. We must stand together across the union in support of your strikes. An injury to one is an injury to all – these are the principles of our movement and collective resistance to managerial failure is more urgent than ever. – Anne Alexander, Communications Officer Cambridge UCU

 

All solidarity with your branch. – Reading UCU

 

I write on behalf of the University of Southampton UCU branch, to express our solidarity with you all during the strike action that you are taking to protect jobs at Newcastle University. – David Bretherton, President Southampton UCU

 

Good luck and solidarity for your dispute. – Pete Wood, Open University UCU

 

All solidarity with your fight to defend jobs at your university. We need a not-for-profit educational system, free at the point of use, from the cradle to the grave. – Geoff Taylor, UCU Southern Region Retired / TEFL Workers’ Union (IWW)

 

Sending solidarity to the Newcastle strike from all of us as BCU ucu! – Rhiannon Lockley, Birmingham City University UCU Chair

 

Solidarity to Newcastle UCU members today from Dundee UCU and our members. Stay strong. United we win. – Carlo Morelli, Dundee UCU

 

I hope this message finds you as well as possible, given what is happening in our sector. I am writing to express our branch’s solidarity for your branch. We feel for you in the challenges you are facing and want to offer what little we can to stand with you during this time. – Anke Buttner, Birmingham UCU Treasurer

 

Haringey Trades Council would like to extend our solidarity greetings to the Newcastle University workers in the UCU taking action to defend against job cuts. Our comrades in the UCU London Retired Members brought the issue to our attention. – Peter Woodward, Haringey TUC Secretary

 

Solidarity to you all on the first day of your strike action against job cuts. We’ve been hugely impressed at how quickly you won such an impressive mandate to fight these vicious cuts. Your example, as well as those of Brunel and Dundee UCU, is encouraging more branches to fight back too. It’s an utter disgrace that this government is betraying the millions who voted for an end to Tory policies. Instead Starmer is ramping up arms spending, cutting foreign aid and boasting that Labour is deporting more refugees than the Tories did. That’s why we can’t leave branches like yours to fight alone. Our union needs to stand up and fight for the whole sector – for education not bombs. Let’s spread some hope and fight for a better future for all. Here’s to you. Victory to Newcastle strikers! – Roddy Slorach, Imperial UCU

 

I wanted to wish you well in your strike this coming month. It’s such a big step, but sadly sometimes so needed. Good luck! We’ll be thinking of you. – Jon Norman Mason, Brighton UCU

 

I’m writing on behalf of Oxford UCU to send greetings of solidarity to Newcastle UCU for your industrial action to defend your jobs, working conditions, and the quality of teaching and research at Newcastle. – David Chivall, Oxford UCU President

 

Huge solidarity to Newcastle UCU! Congratulations to staff, branch lay officers and members for an excellent ballot result in response to the appalling management plans for 300 redundancies. Together we need to ensure that the failed HE funding model changes. University staff deserve job security and our full support, so that our students, our regions, the whole country benefit from quality education. You have my full support. Solidarity. – Maria Chondrogianni, UCU President Elect.

 

Sending solidarity to our colleagues at Newcastle from Loughborough University UCU.  The scale of the cuts you’re facing is disturbing and we congratulate your members on taking action to fight it.  Staff and students should not bear the brunt of broken university finances or a broken HE funding system. – David Wilson, Loughborough UCU Branch Chair

 

Solidarity at this difficult time for Newcastle University workers. At such a dire time it can be vital to give our members hope that our struggles can win. – Donna Brown, Royal Holloway University London UCU

 

With solidarity and very best wishes from all your colleagues at UCL UCU, you are on the frontlines, but this is a fight that affects us all. – Danielle Lamb, UCL UCU Treasurer

 

Our members have overwhelmingly backed strike action because they refuse to allow their colleagues to pay the price for management’s failure to budget effectively. The vice-chancellor now needs to concentrate on resolving this dispute and avoiding strike action at home before thinking about opening up new campuses in India.  – Jo Grady, UCU General Secretary

 

We are writing to you to express our solidarity after hearing of the 300 redundancies at your institution, along with the two year ‘transformation’ project being proposed.  We will do what we can at Leicester to ensure that what is going on in Newcastle and other places does not go unnoticed. – Nataly Papadopoulou, Leicester UCU Secretary

 

Thank you for organising your pioneering and inspiring call to action against job cuts.  We know it is hard work and not easy.  You are demonstrating clearly that our union can be rebuilt and re-fuelled by branches taking industrial action against cuts.  We hope that the growing number of branches like yours will mean that meaningful national action can follow.  Nothing else can address the crisis in Higher Education. Employers need to know that we do not accept that the market, with all its instabilities, should dictate the provision of education. – Kingston UCU

 

We have been dismayed by the cuts, and threat of so many redundancies, announced at Newcastle University. We have also been inspired by your deft and decisive response to the cuts. We are a small branch, but if there is anything we can do to help you in your fight, please let us know. We are sending so much solidarity. – York St. Johns UCU