(This is a copy of an email that was sent to all UCU members at Sunderland University on 13/01/25 to outline what has been going on)
FAO all UCU members at Sunderland University
Dear colleagues
Last week, a small number of your academic colleagues were told that the part of the University they work in was going to be restructured and that there was a possibility of a redundancy. A significant downgrading of an existing member of staff was also in the proposal.
The rationale and process document included this phrase:
“An express request is to maintain confidentiality with parties involved in this process; no discussions with students, alumni or colleagues.”
As you might expect, your union representatives challenged this. I then wrote to senior staff in the University as follows, asking them to change the confidentiality clause:
A group of staff have been told that there is a restructure and potential redundancies, and they have been told that they cannot discuss this with any of their colleagues. The presentation and the email that has been sent out is attached and below.
We understand that there may be a need to manage this messaging within the University’s student population, and potentially the media and the wider public, but this is a very cruel way to deal with a situation which could impact negatively on staff, through no fault of their own.
While the manager in charge bears ultimate responsibility for the ill-advised messaging, that this has not been picked up and challenged by others only serves to demonstrate why our members have expressed “no confidence” in HR last year.
The Director of HR replied:
The confidentiality requirement is in place to minimise disruption as far as reasonably possible, and to protect the student experience; it’s important that we strike the right balance with this – to support impacted colleagues in the right way with the right level of support whilst ensuring teaching and learning is not adversely affected. We are keen to avoid a situation where wider colleagues / students / partners may be provided with limited information, without the full briefing and context, and where this would cause unnecessary unrest – as we experienced shortly before Christmas in another area. As I know you will appreciate, carefully managing the message in these situations is crucially important.
Impacted colleagues can rely upon their trade union representatives, line manager, head of school, Faculty Dean, HR, and each other during this process. There are also wider wellbeing and support services available if colleagues wish to speak with someone on a neutral basis.
During a fractious exchange on the phone with the Director of HR, I stated that unless the University changed its position, we would be telling all our members about this situation and issuing a press release. Nothing further has come from them, and later that same day the line manager emailed the impacted staff with almost identical wording as had been used by the Director of HR.
To reflect on what is being said by the University:
- One academic in one part of the University cannot tell another that they are at risk of redundancy. This could be for the purpose of seeking comfort, advice, or perhaps with a view to exploring the possibility of avoiding redundancy through exploration of alternative work and possibilities of collaboration.
UCU’s view is that this is outrageous.
Our press release is here: https://www.ucu.org.uk/article/13810
Your local representatives can be contacted here: ucu@sunderland.ac.uk
With kind regards,
Jon
Jon Bryan
UCU Regional Support Official, Northern Region
