This week’s theme: “Do not shore up a failing regime.”

The BU UCU Workload Planning Tool is available! Download and use it to estimate your realistic workload now.

Quick Reminders

• We haven’t received nominations for a number of vacant BU UCU Committee posts, so the nomination window for those roles has been extended to Friday 22 August, noon. See details below.
• Our Annual General Meeting will be held on Thursday 4 September 2025 at 13:00, online. If you have a motion to present, please submit that by 21 August.
• We maintain our Member Guidance for ASOS and how to protect yourself during the restructuring; if there’s anything you’d like adding to it, please let us know.
• If you need to report a general issue regarding the restructuring or issues in the uni, please use our General Reporting Form. If you would like assistance with an individual case, please submit a Casework Pro Forma.
• Our wellbeing survey is still live. Get everyone you know to fill it out!

Here’s the latest on the restructuring process, compulsory redundancies, and workload pandemonium. This update covers developments since the 7 Aug Sit-Rep.

Workload Planning: Chaos, Obstruction, and Disrepair

WAMS was quietly re-launched at close of business on 13 August: nine days late, and in a barely functional state.

Managers are reporting that they cannot assign buyouts, leadership duties, admin time, or any of the workload components required to plan fairly or in line with the 2019 agreement. The only entries available are education and the 400 capped research hours.

This is not just a technical delay. It’s a management failure with immediate consequences:

• Workloads cannot be negotiated or agreed in a meaningful way.
• Staff with research funding, leadership, or citizenship roles are unaccounted for.
• Entire programmes are at risk of non-delivery because line managers can’t assign workloads properly.

This proves what we’ve been saying all along: excluding UCU and academic staff from operational working groups is already failing. This system could have been flagged as unworkable months ago if the university had trusted its own people.

We strongly urge all members to:

• Use our standalone WLP tool to plan and assert a reasonable workload.
• Refuse any workloads imposed without proper consultation.
• Report any gaps or problems, especially if your programme cannot be taught with the available staff.

“No Compulsory Redundancies”: Why we haven’t called off the strike

Management have declared that no academic staff will be made compulsorily redundant in this round. They are treating this as a cause for celebration.

What they are not saying:

• 85 people left through VR. Most did not want to go. Many were senior women. Most were over 50.
• Visiting fellows are being asked to mark for free.
• Compulsory redundancies are still very much on the table for professional support staff, for next year, and for post-teach-out staff.
• None of the problems we raised in the dispute have been resolved.
• And they still haven’t responded to our ACAS Conciliation request.

This is not a victory. It’s a reshuffle of the same broken strategy, and it still ends with students short-changed, workloads exploding, and staff pushed out.

We’ll be opening discussion on strike to members next week, but at the moment, we’re still planning on striking from 22 September – 3 October, and we are not backing down.

Board Responds, But Offers No Answers

On 14 August, the University Board finally replied to our formal letter of 25 June. We had waited nearly two months for this response, which they promised after their 11 July meeting. Disappointingly, it is largely non-committal, vague, and evasive.

The Board:

• Denies that governance has been breached, claiming Senate’s role is only “consultative” and that no change to BU’s educational character has yet occurred.
• Claims it is “receiving updates” on workload planning and staffing, despite clear evidence that WAMS is non-functional and line managers are unable to assign actual work.
• Defends the exclusion of academic staff from restructuring decisions, citing Charity Commission advice and financial sensitivities, an excuse that fails to justify sidelining elected staff governors.
• States that redacted Board minutes are being reviewed for publication, with no timeline or accountability.
• Claims to be working closely with the Clerk, though no independent advice was sought before approving Phase 1 changes.

We are drafting our response, challenging their deflections and demanding immediate action. In the meantime, we encourage all members to stay sceptical, stay loud, and stay organised. The Board’s strategy appears to be delay, denial, and damage control: not meaningful oversight.

Don’t Help Them Wreck the Place

We are making one thing crystal clear:

Do not volunteer. Do not patch the holes they created. Do not extend interim roles. Do not do their dirty work.

We know you care about your colleagues and students. But shoring up a failing system hurts them more.

Every time you agree to take on another unpaid duty or agree to “just help out,” you are propping up a regime that is deliberately underfunding, undermining, and outsourcing your job.

• Do not cover line management roles.
• Do not step in for leadership posts.
• Do not help recruit, schedule, or plan for a system that refuses to include you.

Let them feel the consequences of their decisions. Make them come to the table.

Tell Us Everything

We need to hear from you. If you know about or are witnessing:

• Visiting fellows doing unpaid work
• PTHPs being hired to replace VR leavers (especially if those PTHPs are VR leavers themselves!)
• Academic programmes that cannot be staffed
• Workloads being assigned unilaterally or outside WAMS
• Interim managers being downgraded or pushed aside
• Dignity at Work violations
• Leadership roles filled without open recruitment
• Misinformation in consultation or redeployment processes

Tell us. Use the General Reporting Form, or email us directly.

We will expose every failure, every breach, every risk.

The Silence from Management

We’ve sent multiple letters, reports, and requests for dialogue. Still unanswered:

• Our 31 July letters to the VC raising over a dozen unresolved member concerns
• Our ACAS conciliation request
• Our questions to HR about redeployment access and contract breaches
• Our formal query on how leadership interims are being handled
• Our request to see documentation confirming SIRM were told to stop soliciting IP from staff

There is no transparency. No negotiation. No care.

That is why we are still in dispute.
That is why we are striking.
That is why we are fighting.

In rage and solidarity,
Your BU UCU Executive