LECTURERS, researchers, technicians and student support workers should not be made to pay the price for the negligence and incompetence of a Scottish university's management, an MSP has said.
Greens MSP Maggie Chapman was commenting as voting by University of Dundee staff in a strike ballot comes to an end. If successful, mass strike action within six months of the ballot is a possibility.
The university recently announced a projected shortfall of up to £30 million, partly as a result of a fall in recruitment of international students.
In an email to staff in November, then-principal and vice-chancellor Professor Iain Gillespie said the financial situation made a reduction in staff numbers “inevitable”.
Whilst no formal process for voluntary or compulsory redundancies has started, senior managers have threatened people with job cuts and warned that the university’s future is at stake.
Management are understood to be in negotiations to secure a bank loan to fund a redundancy scheme.
Staff and students have not been part of recovery discussions - and both have condemned the lack of proper process or justification for these cuts.
Chapman, (below) who represents Dundee as part of the North East Region, said: “This crisis is a product of senior management’s bad decision-making and poor governance.
“What little financial information has been made available shows that staff costs are not the cause of the deficit. Lecturers, researchers, technicians, student support workers - all those who actually make the university work - should not be made to pay the price for the negligence and incompetence of management.
“The University Executive Group hasn’t even afforded staff the dignity of transparency, clarity, or security. Senior leaders have failed to conduct any meaningful engagement with unions, and continue to evade any line of questioning. Whatever the outcome of this ballot, it will be impossible for the university to continue ignoring the voices of their staff.
“It is shameful, and a complete injustice, that the executive is offloading the consequences of their actions onto those who are in no way to blame for this deficit.”
“This crisis reveals a deeper fracture in our higher education sector, where universities have sought to operate like businesses focused on profit rather than as education institutions focused on wider societal benefit and wellbeing and supporting staff and students.”
The university has hosted two all-staff "town hall" meetings. Both have been attended by over 1000 staff members.
Both saw staff voicing their concerns directly to the Interim Principal. Neither saw any questions from staff properly answered.
Chapman added: “Staff aren’t just angry, they’re exhausted. They’re hurt. They’re being treated as financial liabilities, but it is senior management that poses the greatest risk to the university.
"Failing in their key duty to maintain the sustainability of the institution, they have tarnished the University’s reputation and lost the faith of their staff.”
