Vice-Chancellor ‘hasn’t met union for nearly two years’

Martin Shipton

Cardiff University’s Vice-Chancellor has been criticised for expressing disappointment over a union’s announcement of an indicative strike ballot, amid claims she has not met union officials for nearly two years.

Last week Nation.Cymru reported how members of the Cardiff University branch of the University and College Union (UCU) had voted overwhelmingly to ratify a set of industrial relations demands asking management to rule out compulsory redundancies in 2027 and reduce “dangerous, unhealthy and unmanageable” staff workloads.

Staff have now entered their third formal industrial relations dispute since the announcement of controversial large-scale job losses and wide-ranging restructures at the university in January 2025. So far, disruptive industrial action has been avoided after guarantees were won from the university’s Executive Board to avoid compulsory redundancies in 2025 and 2026.

Despite these commitments, there have still been large-scale job losses since 2024 due to several voluntary severance and voluntary redundancy schemes, as well as many staff leaving the institution and not being replaced. At least 170 academics have left, and professional services support staff numbers have also dwindled. The union claims these job losses, along with “poorly managed” and “chaotic” restructuring exercises, have led to workload increases, widespread stress and confusion.

According to union leaders, these staff cuts, combined with changes to the time staff are allocated to do core aspects of their jobs, such as research and teaching, mean that “an already existing workload crisis is getting even worse”.

A summer of intense negotiations between campus unions and management ended at a Joint Negotiating Committee meeting on September 9 with a failure to agree on commitments on job security and workload. After this breakdown in talks, an emergency general meeting of members of Cardiff UCU on October 13 voted overwhelmingly to kickstart a campaign of industrial action. It is based around two central demands: a commitment to no compulsory redundancies in 2027; and a signed collective agreement on workloads which would ensure ongoing and substantive consultation between unions and management and reverse recent cuts to protect research time for academics.

A non-binding, consultative ballot of members is taking place in November with a view to holding an official, statutory vote on strike action and action short of a strike in early 2027.

Cardiff University senior management were said to be “disappointed” at a University and College Union (UCU) press release and at not being personally contacted ahead of time. The press statement, sent to the university press office at the same time as to the wider press, announced that UCU is opening a consultative ballot of its members regarding possible industrial action.

Informed

A Cardiff University staff member familiar with the situation told Nation.Cymru that Cardiff University’s senior management should get the latest updates from their own negotiating team, who had been informed back in the summer that UCU would be moving to a ballot after university management declined to provide a guarantee of no compulsory redundancies in 2027.

Even better, the staff member suggested, the Vice-Chancellor, Prof Wendy Larner, could have met with trade union representatives herself, having failed to show up to meetings with trade union representatives for almost two years, amid increasing chaos and uncertainty caused by an overambitious and deeply divisive restructure that the Vice-Chancellor is driving through at a rushed pace.

Cardiff University was invited to respond.