We need a mandate, because managers and their consultants have pivoted the purpose of our institutions from research & education to prioritising financial gain over everything. Enough. Staff and students need to be central in the decision-making processes and priorities again. #SaveHE #WeAreTheUni

There are a series of petitions relevant to the troubling situation at our fellow East Midlands institution, please do sign them if you can

Meanwhile, at last report, the University had cash including short-term deposits of £139.4 million. For all these reasons and more, vote YES in UCU’s national ballot – a strong mandate is the only way VCs will begin to take fair pay and conditions seriously.

From a @ucunorthumbria.bsky.social member: "it is wrong to frame this as saying staff will have options, when all options correspond to a significant reduction from the status-quo, and the status-quo corresponds to decades long losses in academic pay. This endangers the future of the UK academia."

We remind all members that we want to have a large show of solidarity - as large as possible - for our colleagues across the city. Please join us next Wednesday!

Be like Lenka from UoN and Marek from @ducu.bsky.social! Cast your ballot in @UCU.org.uk's national industrial action campaign today!

At a time when our society sees so much division, we need our colleges more than ever. Yet FE funding has fallen by 60%, and staff earn less now than they did 20 years ago. Vote YES for fair pay and to keep the colleges that hold our communities together. #NewDealForFE

Another story about university leadership appears in the Leicester Gazette: www.leicester.news/de-montfort-...

DMU UCU is sad to announce the passing of Alan Ryan, our former branch chair and a beloved colleague and comrade to many. Please see the link below for information on funeral arrangements. alan-james-ryan.muchloved.com

The @ucu.org.uk "We are the University" ballots will be posted to members on Monday. Look out for a pink envelope at your registered address arriving next week. We encourage all members to vote and make their voice heard. #WeAreTheUniversity #LboroUCU

Private Eye once again reporting on the DMU leadership. Credit to the Leicester Gazette @leicestergazette.leicester.news who first broke the story.

Day 2 - more sunshine and happy faces on the pickets!

Superb Rally Against Redundancies at the University of Leicester, with hundreds of staff, students and supporters. @leicesterucu.bsky.social begins its strike on Monday.

Our branch is proud to stand with our colleagues at @leicesterucu.bsky.social

Strike starts TODAY!!! Branch members will be picketing from 8 to 11 today, tomorrow, and Wednesday at UP's west, south, and north entrance and Jubilee's main entrance on Derby road. Come show your support! #StopTheCuts #SaveHE

Our friends at @leicesterucu.bsky.social are holding a rally tomorrow at 1pm. All DMU UCU members who are in the area, please consider stopping by to show solidarity!

Do you want to know how UCU senior management has responded to UCU branches calling on them to remove their threat of deductions? This is how. How would you react? uniteucu.wordpress.com/2025/09/12/u...

Leicester UCU will be on strike from Monday 29 September until Friday 17 October. Support our striking members, donate to the fighting fund if you're able. More details here: www.uculeicester.org.uk/leicester-uc...

Our branch secretary, @stuartwhigham.bsky.social, explains why our members should vote yes ❌ and yes ❌ in the local ballot. Stuart outlines the impact that wider cuts to workload tariffs will have on our Associate Lecturer colleagues.

Strike action is ON!!! Next week will be the first of 4 weeks of striking from our members as we continue to say NO to the compulsory redundancies forced on us by the university for their poor financial choices. #StopTheCuts #SaveHE

Staff at @uniofleicester.bsky.social to strike for three weeks over plans to slash hundreds of jobs www.leicestermercury.co.uk/news/leicest...

As a union, we have been fighting employers’ attempts at making 100% pay deductions for ASOS legal since 2019. As a branch, we’ve been at the forefront of that fight since 2022. Our own union going against our policies, workers’ interest, and legal cases hurts. Letter: qmucu.org/2025/09/12/l...

We don’t want to strike. We want managers to sit down with us so we can work together to find alternative solutions!

This would surely be dependent on retaining all the academic staff across both institutions?

Thanks again to @leicestergazette.leicester.news for following up on this story. £5m spent on consultants. www.leicester.news/de-montfort-...

Absolutely astounded that the UCU and Unison branches at Kent and Greenwich were not consulted, and that staff only found out about the merger this morning via BBC news and Kent Online. Solidarity to all colleagues.

We sent solidarity to our colleagues at Kent and Greenwich, we are stunned that the news broke to them this morning at the same time as the rest of us

Solidarity with our colleagues in Sheffield!

Solidarity with our East Midlands colleagues. We are also experiencing this loss at present, with more to come. UK HE is in a terrible state and some urgent action is needed.

So, just to reiterate: PLEASE REGULATE THE USE OF EXTERNAL CONSULTANCIES, Government. We all had a good laugh today, but it wasn't worth the millions this will have cost in tuition fee money going to some consultancy that is about to do exactly the same two towns over.

Unaccountable management, undisciplined external spending, avoidably risky financial decisions: a pattern repeated all acros #UKHE, though sadly starkly present @ucudmu.bsky.social. Brilliantly pulled together here, however devasting the read.

A statement from the recent DMU Town Hall (with alt text - apologies for past omissions)...

Solidarity with our excellent colleagues at BCU!

Thank you to South and City College Birmingham @ucu.org.uk rep and FE NEC member Saffi who brought support to us at our lobby of the @mybcu.bsky.social governors meeting. Draws attention to cuts to adult education and university cuts as part of a wider program of attacks on student access to support

🚨 Lobby the BCU governors! 🚨 On Wed 16th BCU governors are meeting for an update on the current review, which has put 342 staff at risk of redundancy & cuts student support in multiple ways. Join our lobby: 1pm outside Parkside Building Bring your solidarity and your sun cream! #SaveBCU

"We need more investment in the arts education, not less" www.leicester.news/the-lack-of-...

. @bcu-ucu.bsky.social members have been amazing: stepping up as buddies to accompany at risk colleagues, joining drop-ins not just to get advice but to offer support, s - and - voting overwhelmingly to escalate strike action as we approach a new year if there is no movement in our dispute.

Beyond busy with amazing @bcu-ucu.bsky.social as we fight a 340+ attack on jobs & ongoing dispute over performance management against a backdrop of suddenly imposed workload-increasing policy changes at same time as shrinking teams with over 200 "silent redundancies" through MARS.

Today we sent an open letter to DMU Leadership asking, once again, for them to engage in a good faith consultation process.

"De Montfort University is part of Leicester. Do not let us lose this."

"Maths and economics and business are clearly not Normingtons strong points"

"as a student from a poor family...my De Montfort fees in Leicester are paying for a campus in Dubai that has state of the art facilities"

The VC continues to double down on the Dubai plan, but the comments tell their own story. Defend DMU! www.timeshighereducation.com/news/teachin...

A MASSIVE WIN AT NEWCASTLE UNI ICU

The List in meme-format: qmucu.org/qmul-transfo...

DMU has made it back into Private Eye's latest edition thanks to the legal situation around its Dubai campus. As noted by @privateeyenews.bsky.social the apparent lack of due diligence on this matter is deeply troubling.

Thank you to all who attended our protest against DMU cuts held at Trinity House this afternoon, students, staff, members of the public. The message was clear: #DefendDMU

The results of the De Montfort university UCU branch's formal No Confidence ballot have now been confirmed: a resounding 90% voted no confidence in the VC and the ULB This is the fourth significant No Confidence vote passed during the current round of proposed redundancies

Mindblowing turn of events. Hard not to have some questions about a university walking away after a partner put £42 million into a project, and then trying to dispute whether the English or the Dubai courts matter. How is anyone going to go into partnerships with DMU from here on on? #UKHE