Campaigns

Stop the Cuts: Fund Higher Education NOW!

Nationally, UCU are calling for immediate action to halt the devastating cuts sweeping across our universities. The current crisis is unsustainable, and it is vital that the government intervenes now to protect our educational institutions:

• One in every two universities is cutting staff jobs and student courses. This alarming trend is not just numbers; it represents the loss of dedicated educators and vital programmes that serve our communities.
• The funding model is failing, destabilising staff and students. The ongoing financial struggles for universities puts immense pressure on both employees and learners, leading to uncertainty and a decline in educational quality.
• The government must intervene to stop this crisis. Urgent action is required to secure commitments from university leaders to halt job cuts, redundancies, and course closures, and to improve pay and working conditions for staff.

Staff and students should not suffer the consequences for the failures of university management and previous government policies.

We are demanding a robust funding package that addresses these issues and fosters a more sustainable future for higher education. 

Sign UCU’s petition and share it with colleagues and supporters. 

Or find out more about our campaign at UCU’s national Stop the Cuts page.

Fighting redundancies at the OU 

Our members are organised and working hard to tackle restructuring and redundancy proposals across multiple units, pushing for no compulsory redundancies. We are helping staff put together counterproposals, getting answers from management, and making sure OU policy is followed.  Individual members who are affected by the restructures can receive one-to-one support and representation from branch caseworkers.

If your unit is going through a restructure now, you can get individual help on the Get Help page. To be part of a joint response, find out who your unit reps are on the Reps and Contacts page. And if you'd like to prepare by getting trained up or supporting actions to prevent redundancies at the OU, email ucu@open.ac.uk.

Support the OU Club

UCU encourages membership of the OU Club, which cultivates a thriving social and civic environment inside the OU by providing social and recreational facilities to staff and retired OU staff. 

Ideas welcome

If you’ve got an idea for a new campaign, you might want to join one of our working groups. They can provide support to set it up, whether that’s feedback, experience, or help to share the load.

Past campaigns

Our leaflets page contains the leaflets and picket line leaflets we have handed out in previous industrial action disputes, and our current 1.3FTE campaign.