Leeds University Strikes

Icon_article Star-blue1 Published: January 26, 2010 16:41 by nab

Tagged as: economic_crisis leeds_university strike union university_of_leeds
Neighbourhoods: leeds

Leeds University is facing 700 job cuts and the UCU is balloting on strike action.  The University is cutting £35 million of spending of which 60% will be from staff cuts.  It gets £30.8 million in tuition fees.  The Leeds student union, LUU are against the strike and have not come out against the job cuts.

Professor Michael Arthur is the Vice Chancellor at Leeds University.  He is also the chair of the Russell Group of universities which is a collection of the top large research institutions in the UK.  Professor Arthur therefore lobbies parliament on behalf of the group and pushes its interests.  If Leeds University can push through cuts of between 8 - 10% of staff then other Universities are likely to follow suit.  This would set an example to the Higher Education sector and would be of great help to the UK's debt if cuts could be justified.

Professor Arthur is paid £244,000 and although he took a pay freeze last year, the year before it went up by 9.9%.  Gordon Brown earns £194,250.

Is the University short of money?

The University borrowed £35 million for buildings and last year made a profit of £11 million.  Surprisingly, it had accounting errors that amount to it thinking it had £100 million more than it did but this apparently has not effected the job cuts.

The University admit that the cuts will be devastating:

".. these huge cuts on university budgets they will have a devastating effect not only on students and staff, but also on our international competitiveness, national economy and ability to recover from recession."

On the other hand the Leeds student union, LUU claim "there is no clear link between student: staff ratios and student satisfaction".  Conservative Mike Gladstone, LUU Education Officer has helped lead a campaign calling students to get the lectures not to strike.  If the Conservatives were in power they wish to reduce the national debt faster so education budgets would go down faster.  This would be terrible for students but Mr. Gladstone is no longer a student.