University of Birmingham strikes called off

Two planned strikes over compulsory redundancies and performance management at the University of Birmingham have been called off.

Members of the University of Birmingham’s University and College Union branch voted overwhelmingly to postpone a half-day strike planned for yesterday after talks with university management made progress.

Members had previously voted by 65 to 35 per cent to launch a weekly series of half-day strikes, followed by a two-day strike at the end of the current term.

The union is concerned about five threatened compulsory redundancies across Birmingham’s department of nursing and physiotherapy, School of Education and Institute of Archaeology and Antiquity. It also wants to agree a redundancy avoidance agreement and a memorandum of understanding on performance management arrangements.

Next week’s half-day strike has also been called off, in what branch president David Bailey described as a “gesture of good will”. However, the union still intends to carry out the final two weeks of strikes if “substantial progress” is not made in the ongoing negotiations.

Dr Bailey said: “The university senior management has very little distance to move in negotiations in order to reach an agreement with us.

“We have been negotiating in good faith this week, and now we require some sign from the university management that they are committed to the principles of redundancy avoidance and fair performance management that they speak of in negotiations and in messages to the university community.”

paul.jump@tsleducation.com