UWS Statutory Ballot OPEN

The EIS ULA statutory ballot at UWS is now OPEN and will remain open for four weeks, closing on Tuesday 22nd July at 12pm.

This is a statutory ballot so members will receive their ballot paper by post. It is imperative that all members cast their ballot and vote YES for strike action as soon as they can.

Members must look out for their ballot paper which will arrive in the post. Open it up and vote YES on the ballot paper. Use the pre-paid envelope provided to post your completed ballot paper as soon as possible and have your voice counted.

UWS recently made staff aware that it is seeking to make 75.2 FTE academic staff redundant but has not stated how it expects to do this.

The University are proposing these redundancies even though it has £28.9M available as cash in the bank along with budget forecasts which expect a surplus of £7.4M for 2026-27. This surplus would be at the expense of members’ jobs.

The EIS ULA branch believes that the University will use compulsory redundancy to achieve this staffing reduction. The EIS does not accept compulsory redundancies in any situation. Joint trade unions have been seeking a no compulsory redundancy guarantee, but the university have chosen not to offer this to staff.

The EIS also objects to voluntary redundancies where they lead to additional work and stress being put on the remaining staff, or when they are used in such a way that members feel forced to take voluntary redundancy/severance.

As this is a local dispute, EIS ULA members would receive strike pay for any days of strike action taken.

In April, members at UWS were asked to stand together to defend their jobs through the consultative ballot process. The result of that ballot was a clear indication that members at UWS will not stand idly by and allow the university to make these cuts. However, the university has not heeded this warning.

To defend jobs, it is therefore necessary to take industrial action. It is our last resort. Doing so requires EIS ULA members at UWS to vote in a statutory ballot.

It has been proven time and again that when members stand together and vote for industrial action, it compels their employers to reconsider their plans, especially on redundancies. This has been most notable at the City of Glasgow College last year and by City of Glasgow Council in relation to teachers this year.

A large turnout and strong YES vote are the only way for UWS management to fully understand how united member are in pushing back against these proposed redundancies. Not only would these cuts have a devastating effect on educational provision and research, but they would also have a marked impact on workload for those staff who remain at the University.