Strike to save London Met jobs!

Submitted by Matthew on 20 May, 2015 - 10:37 Author: Max Watson, London Met Unison branch secretary

Max Watson, London Met Unison branch secretary, spoke to Solidarity


The Section 188 redundancy consultation is now over and we are waiting for the results. 

Management used changes to the law for a shorter, 45 day, consultation, and we got this extended by just a week.  It is likely they will make people reapply for their jobs, forcing people to go through the very upsetting process of competing with their colleagues. 

We’ve fought against job cuts and privatisation, and to defend overseas students before — our members are used to fighting management and are prepared to do so again. We had unanimous votes for strike action at our branch meetings and a consultative ballot, conducted over the Easter holidays, 86% voted for strike action. 

We are confident that we will get a yes vote in the ballot which ends on Friday 22 May. 

There is a huge feeling of anger and resentment for being made to suffer for management’s strategic blunders which have caused this crisis. 

The University leadership has driven us from one crisis to another, and are now proposing cuts again. We have faced year on year cuts every year for the past five years. This is the largest attack since 2011. 

The cuts focus on the Faculty of Business and Law. 

University management claim this is because student numbers are down in this faculty. However we think it is part of their longer term plan to restructure the university campuses into one campus based on the Holloway Road Campus, even though the university have just spent £10 million on refurbishing the Moorgate building, where business and law are housed.

Staff are not cowed by these year on year cuts. We continue to organise a new layer of reps and activists. We won a living wage campaign and we have high density in outsourced sections. Cleaners and security guards now have high density. Outsourced catering staff have 85% density. 

Every time they have come to attack us we have increased our membership — people join the union as they see us resisting the ongoing attacks. 

We have been working closely with the UCU since the fight against job cuts in 2009 where we took three strike days together.

There are however rules which hamper us and hold us to different timelines — for example the ballots over job cuts this time have been at different times.

The weak point is with the student union, who currently have a position of “neutrality”. We know they are coming under lots of pressure for the university to not support us.

The fight is not just about jobs but all cuts and the effect on our staff. We are using the slogan “cut stress, not jobs”.  Even if people leave voluntarily it’s about a job being lost and the effect on other people. 

Redundancies leave an increasingly stressed and overworked work force behind, as people have to pick up the work left by the loss of 165 jobs. IT services had 30% sickness absence rate at the beginning of last term. Staff are already under too much stress and we cannot continue with this spiral of decline. 

Management have said in a leaked document they want to “manage out” the “actively disengaged” staff (who they feel do not commit to management’s initiatives). We have turned this round and produced badges saying “actively disengaged” for our members to wear in a show of defiance. 

Management’s own staff survey recntly found that 83% have no trust or confidence in their leadership. Until we see change in leadership and management those staff will continue to be “actively disengaged”.

While we wait for the ballot result (due on 22 May) we are leafletting members to keep the momentum up and are planning a winning strategy which includes action short of strike and a ‘work to rule’. 

UCU have now announced their first day of strike action on 21 May and we will do all we can to show our support within the rigid laws and existing protocols and ensure that all further action is coordinated.  

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