@northumbriauni.bsky.social want to freeze our pay unless we move pension? @ucunorthumbria.bsky.social say #Wham bam no thank you man! @ucu.org.uk @ducu.bsky.social @sheffielducu.bsky.social @ducuuo.bsky.social @umucu.bsky.social @uswucu.bsky.social @chroniclelive.co.uk @danhollandnews.bsky.social

It might be that Birmingham have been uniquely foolish in their handling of this situation, but it's worth noting that management failing to take overwork, stress and burnout seriously is a sector-wide problem, and only getting worse as universities slash staff costs.

Go get 'em!

@ucunorthumbria.bsky.social ballot opens next week to stop a pay freeze @northumbriauni.bsky.social. Just getting in early, ya filthy animals... @ucu.org.uk @ducu.bsky.social @sheffielducu.bsky.social @ducuuo.bsky.social @umucu.bsky.social @uswucu.bsky.social

Here's a musical message for all @ucunorthumbria.bsky.social members, and those @northumbriauni.bsky.social who want to freeze their pay! @ucu.org.uk @ducu.bsky.social @sheffielducu.bsky.social @ducuuo.bsky.social @umucu.bsky.social

✊ Yesterday UCU members stood at Southampton Solent as the Board discussed a fire-and-rehire proposal that would weaken pensions. UCU is clear: no to fire and rehire. #SouthamptonSolent #UCU

VC loses confidence vote:

This is pulling the ladder up after them - it is SO vital and I came through a route that did precisely this for me. I then went on to a fully funding nurse training that gave me and my daughter enough to live off... Talk about removing ladders from poverty.

Always happy to welcome more friends into club-of-demanding-an-end-to-this-mess, but why does every VC see the light only *after* they retired and set aside all power & responsibility? What is it in those VC bodies like UUK an UCEA that prevents them from acknowledging reality?

Join your trade union. @ducu.bsky.social

Awful, awful news. Full solidarity with UCU Essex in their fight to get this plan abandoned.

Despicable.

The insulting 1.4% pay offer from the universities on top of years of sub-inflation pay rises has led our members to vote for strike action in the 2025-26 pay round. The results are as follows: Turnout: 54.39% Yes: 83.16% Against: 16.84% We now have mandate for strike action!

I'd say what they think they're achieving here is exactly what they *are* achieving. Now they think they've won on what it means to be a woman biologically (despite that not being true either scientifically or legally), they've moved on to denying trans women the right to *socialise* as women.

Solidarity with Derby @ucu.org.uk members on strike against compulsory redundancies this week. #LboroUCU branch is with you as you stand up to your catastrophic management! #DerbyUCU #WeAreTheUniversity

And De Montfort University! Which other Nous-victims are there in #UKHE?

Disappointing national ballot result for @ucu.org.uk. We have to keep building despite it. Proud of our branch @ducu.bsky.social who got comfortably over the 50% mark based on our local data. Building strong local branches is essential to defending our sector, there is no other way out of this.

This is why it's important to have Arts/Humanities courses AND STEM courses. It all fits together, they compliment each other. There's no such thing as useless education.

Sensible universities see their staff as assets to be nurtured and protected. Foolish universities see them as a cost to be minimised. Really stupid universities see them as an enemy to be defeated. @sheffielducu.bsky.social

This is what my employer is trying to do to us at Northumbria University.

Come see Dr Jane Rooney talk this Thursday on the topic of international law! Atrocities in Palestine and International Law Dr Jane Rooney (Durham Law School) 4 December 2025 1-2pm TLC101

So, an OU student a shitty reaction paper in a psych course, got failed by a grad student TA for not following directions and threatened legal action, while also getting her uni TPUSA chapter to post the essay. Her mother is on X saying trans people must not be allowed to be professors. This is…

...because of their plans to freeze people's pay indefinitely if they do not move to a different pension. We haven't done this for over 10 years. That shows how bad this is and how outraged people are. @ucu.org.uk @ducu.bsky.social @newcastleucu.bsky.social

💥💥💥Last week, @ucunorthumbria.bsky.social members voted unanimously to declare 'no confidence' in @northumbriauni.bsky.social senior management (the VC, the Deputy VC, the 'Chief People Officer', the Chief Financial Officer, and the Director of HR)...

The consultancy Nous takes hundreds of thousands of pounds from universities, leaves the exact same path of destruction everywhere, and keeps trying to avoid transparent contracts. We’re urgently need control over consultancy spent in #UKHE, @bphillipsonmp.bsky.social

Out Now, in Time for Xmas: Tintin and the Stolen Pay @ucu.org.uk @northumbriauni.bsky.social @ucunorthumbria.bsky.social

the measure of a country doing well is if it's people are happy, free, prosperous, & healthy, not if an arbitrary number of people cross a border in chasing that latter goal, countries like the UK have undermined the former ones - we a poorer, more divided, & literally sicker

Yep. They'll come to you in private and say how glad they were you spoke up, but whenever they get the chance to *actually* back you up; crickets.

Staff are so overwhelmed at @durham.ac.uk following ill-conceived staff cuts, but @ducu.bsky.social members still organised to beat the 50% turnout threshold in the ballot seeking UK-wide agreements to save jobs, pay, & conditions (cf 34.8% turnout at the @durhamcouncil.bsky.social 2025 election).

Waited until today to say this, to ensure we got in as many ballots as we could, but DUCU can confirm we passed the Tory anti-trade union 50% voting threshold for the current national ballot. Our team did a huge amount of amazing GTVO work, benefitting not just Durham but other branches. Respect.

With apologies for the late notice, Roaa Elhag will be talking 1-2pm *today* in TLC101 about the situation in Sudan.

SUBMIT YOUR BALLOT BEFOER 5PM TODAY! And if you need five good reasons why it's worth digging that pink envelop out of the pile of post and get it in a postbox: qmucu.org/2025/11/21/v... -- with huge thanks to @ducu.bsky.social

@ducu.bsky.social @ucu.org.uk @sheffielducu.bsky.social @ducuuo.bsky.social @unison.org.uk @umucu.bsky.social @uswucu.bsky.social

POST IT POST IT POST IT POST IT

To put this in perspective, £600m is 0.0488% of the national budget. If the UK was a median earner *in* the UK, that's a yearly bump equivalent to finding a £20 note in your birthday card.

Thought it might be interesting to update our graphs so they show our VC's salary for comparison. There's lots of chop, but the VC salary is *up* in real terms from where it was in 2008. Inflation handled in same way as for all spine points. A minor error: the 2019 value should be £333k, not £351k.

Pssst… #UCU members… last safe day to post your ballots (a cold walk to postbox & a quick email to reps to confirm vote). We need to regain leverage. Employers (& govt) need to know they can’t keep ‘solving’ financial issues by cutting jobs/pay/conditions. Workers are already at/past breaking point.

always a good time to be us 🤗 ✊ #injurytooneinjurytoall #injusticetooneinjusticetoall

WE LOVE TO SEE IT

Looks like it's a good time to be us!

Successive governments' views of the UK higher education sector

Seriously, UK establishment, try to show your humane side in this. International students are reading these headlines, and they are seeing how they’re turned into a political football, not the learners in a very precarious position that they are.

Anyone who can look at the current underfunded state of UK universities and think there's half a billion quid you can take out of the sector without doing catastrophic damage is just not fit for office.

Feels like a good time to remind people: pensions are deferred wages. Moving someone forcibly to a worse pension is wage theft. Always unjustifiable, but particularly appalling in the context of years and years of real-terms pay cuts. Why do they NEVER have any solution other than paying us less?

What a way to end our fifth strike week of the academic year! Back to the office on Monday but the fight goes on to stop subject closures and job cuts.

Lancaster University UCU members have beaten back compulsory redundancies. After weeks of pressure management has agreed to halt all forced job cuts until July 2026. This is a victory for jobs and every branch fighting cuts across the sector. We are the university. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

The University launched a new Academic Workload Framework to be fairer. My Faculty saw an opportunity to slash R&E track Research by 20%, cut Citizenship by 10% & raise Teaching time by 17%. But if we jump through enough of the right hoops, we might earn back 10% for R & C. VOTE! @ducu.bsky.social

As we near the last safe day for ballot posting in the current national UCU ballot (get 'em in by Wed, preferably sooner), let's remember what we're fighting for. We'll start with the graphs we made last week. Decades of pay erosion has left many of us a full pay spine point below where we should be

Numbers for TU members to remember: 30-45-90 30: the number of days it takes an employer to get rid of 20-99 of us. 45: the number of days it takes an employer to boot 100+ of us. 90: roughly how long TU’s need to get a mandate. Do the math. VOTE! @ucu.org.uk @ducu.bsky.social

@ucu.org.uk @ducu.bsky.social @sheffielducu.bsky.social @ducuuo.bsky.social @uclucu.bsky.social @unison.org.uk @unisonnorthern.bsky.social @tuc.org.uk @tucglobal.bsky.social @tucnorthwest.bsky.social This cause is close to my heart - please sign: www.megaphone.org.uk/petitions/no...