Though Cowards Flinch

All quiet on the Canterbury front

It appears that the University of Kent’s UCU branch has won a decisive reversal of the university’s decision to get rid of staff members in the Biosciences department. It was originally alleged that the university management “could find no role” for these staff, despite the excellent rating students gave the department.

Now, the following statement has been released:

“The University and UCU have had further constructive discussions in relation to the future of the School of Biosciences and have agreed upon an acceptable resolution of the matters in issue between them. This successful conclusion to the discussions indicates a renewed spirit  of constructive partnership between management and UCU, and both parties are committed to entering into a Redundancy Avoidance Agreement for the future.

“As a result, the threat of compulsory redundancies has now been lifted from UCU members in Biosciences, and UCU has therefore cancelled the planned ballot of its members on taking industrial action which was to commence on Friday 26th March 2010.”

This seems like a comprehensive win for the UCU, which was strongly backed by a student-led campaign that had planned a march on the Canterbury campus in the run up to the strike. Management have been forced into a climbdown, made evident by the tenor of the rhetoric the Vice Chancellor used to announce the redundancies, which asserted that the decision was already taken and that local and national UCU had been “informed”.

Please note, tomorrow’s staff/student march has been called off by the Students’ Union.

I think it was a mistake to call off the march, myself. Having been helping out the local Socialist Students group on and off campus, the momentum was clearly building in a way that was not anticipated by the fairly weak and ambiguous wording of the Kent Uni SU motion to oppose the cuts. A demonstration of unity and a celebration of success wouldn’t have been out of place. But my happiness for the lecturers whose jobs have been saved makes up for a minor quibble.

Socialist Students and other interested groups on campus, and amongst the people of Canterbury, will be watching the situation carefully, in case management attempt either to move against a different department or to re-announce the cuts whenever students are preoccupied with exams or summer holidays. In the meantime, there’s plenty of work still to be done on other campaigns, such as Youth Fight for Jobs and supporting PCS and other local unions.