Dispute leaves staff penniless

More than 30 nurse tutors formerly based at the University of Portsmouth are without salaries or redundancy pay and are unlikely to get either before Christmas because of a dispute between the university and those of Southampton and Bournemouth plus the National Health Service.

The problem arose when the NHS asked Portsmouth to re-tender for its contract to train nurses in the area. The university lost the contract to the universities of Southampton and Bournemouth.

Portsmouth then issued redundancy notices to more than 30 staff. But the Association of University Teachers and Natfhe successfully obtained an industrial tribunal hearing on the grounds that the staff should transfer from Portsmouth to Southampton and Bournemouth. Portsmouth agreed that its staff should transfer but Southampton, Bournemouth and the NHS did not.

"It is a very difficult situation for the staff," said John Craven, vice-chancellor of the University of Portsmouth. "But the TUPE (Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment)) regulations are precisely designed for this sort of case."

But John Taylor, director of planning at the University of Southampton, said that it was not a question of a transfer of activity but the establishment of new activity. "I have personally got a lot of sympathy with the Portsmouth staff. But they and their redundancy pay are the responsibility of Portsmouth."

The case is unlikely to be heard before Christmas.