An “End of Dispute” Message from Leicester UCU

Published: 3rd August, 2026

Leicester University and College Union (UCU) branch has been in dispute with the University of Leicester since 22 May 2025. We entered dispute because the Vice Chancellor, Nishan Canagarajah, and the Executive he leads refused our request “to rule out a programme of collective compulsory redundancies in the 2025-6 academic year”.

Given this formal basis of our dispute, the end of the 2025-6 academic year marks the end of that dispute. We wanted to take this opportunity to reflect on the past year.

A collective effort

When redundancies were first threatened, Leicester UCU took a decision that we would do everything in our power to oppose job losses. We rapidly organised and won an indicative ballot followed by a statutory industrial action ballot. The result was 31 days of strike action, along with a campaign of Action Short of a Strike and countless protests – including a well-supported national demonstration held in Leicester.

Less visible, but no less important, we have as a branch provided support to every member at risk of redundancy who requested it, as well as having a presence in every single collective consultation meeting.

These initiatives required a colossal collective effort.

We would, therefore, like to express our appreciation of all those within Leicester UCU who:

Supported colleagues in meetings
Attended picket lines
Brought us food or fuel for our brazier on the chilly days
Spoke at teach-outs
Carried UCU’s gear around campus
Banged drums
…and provided laughter, solidarity and wisdom in countless other forms.

We would also like to thank our supporters. Union branches up and down the country donated money for our Fighting Fund. Leicester University Unite and Unison branches stood shoulder-to-shoulder with us in meetings. Leicester & District TUC were unstinting in bringing their banner to our events and publicising our dispute. Our local independent MP and our Green Party councillors offered their support and lobbied our Vice Chancellor.

Above all, our students, including those in the affected Schools, were magnificent. Their élan, wit and confidence in holding senior managers to account helped us keep going. They made clear that this was not simply an “industrial dispute” but a battle to defend a whole university community.

Closures and job losses

We did not win every battle. Modern Languages and Film are to be closed. Chemistry and Geography, Geology & the Environment (GGE) experienced an enforced merger. Staff were lost in these areas, together with some in the School of Education and in History, as well as two areas of academic-related professional services: College Operations and Technical and Research Infrastructure Services (TRIS).

Out of 240 directly impacted staff identified at the beginning of the Strategic Review, around 50 will, by the end of the planned “teach-outs” have been pushed out of the university. The closures and redundancies are a reckless act of vandalism by the Executive, damaging our university and the students and staff who could in the future have joined our community. It will weaken our research, our teaching and our reputation.

We continue to offer sympathy and solidarity to all those forced out of the University of Leicester.

Right to fight

Our branch was right to fight against redundancies. The Executive will claim that our struggle was irrelevant to their decision-making; that any mitigation of threatened redundancies was an act of benevolence on their part. There was never the slightest chance that they would say otherwise. To do so would simply be to encourage further defiance.

We are, nonetheless, confident that our struggle did win significant gains for members:

During the pre-change period, closing History and the School of Education were openly discussed. These closures were averted. Our campaign and strike action were significant factors in this. This saved jobs.
The Executive had initially threatened redundancies across five “Functional Areas” of professional services. Now they have decided not to initiate redundancy programmes in three of these: IT/Digital Services; Student Support & Programme Administration; and Transactional Finance.

That reflects the pressure of our campaign. Again, this saved jobs.

We also saved individual jobs. For instance, during the GGE/Chemistry merger, we successfully forced managers to pause the process, giving UCU and our members more time to challenge decisions. We managed to increase the range of research areas in which staff would be retained and increased the temporary retention of staff during the teach-out (something we also achieved in Modern Languages).

Even in the past week, we managed to gain a further post into which a staff member at risk was redeployed. The collective campaign at branch level increased our leverage while helping individual members in efforts to save their jobs.

We forced the Executive to offer enhanced packages (Voluntary Severance) to those it forced out of the university. They claim this was simply “the right thing to do”. Yet in the previous redundancy programme (Shaping of Excellence) – and indeed at the start of this programme – they were perfectly content to push through Compulsory Redundancies. The change reflects the pressure we brought to bear.
Our collective action made our dispute visible, giving greater confidence to those fighting redundancies. We would not have achieved the same level of public support, student backing or the lobbying on our behalf from professional bodies or politicians, had we not taken such action.
We also gave further inspiration to other UCU branches around the country not to take redundancies lying down. Dundee UCU is starting a five-week strike in September. Glasgow Caledonian UCU have strikes in August and September. Goldsmiths UCU have been on strike since 8 June. Nottingham UCU have taken extensive strike action over the summer.

Branch democracy

At every stage in our campaign, we insisted that our branch had to make decisions democratically, through open debate and discussion, and through votes. Members voted to go into dispute and to launch a ballot. Each week before strikes took place, we voted on whether to continue with the planned actions. Along with frequent branch general meetings, we organised strike committees, to help with the logistics of the strikes, and extra meetings of staff in affected areas to offer them greater support.

Not every member agreed with every decision throughout the dispute, but by ensuring the officers leading the dispute were accountable to the wider membership, we ensured that every member had a voice and could shape what we did. It is noteworthy that during the dispute we continued to recruit members and increased our reps and UCU officers.

The Future

We have requested that the Executive rule out launching any further redundancy programmes in the 2026-7 academic year. We await a response. While this dispute is ending, the financial future of the university is unclear. We should be ready as a branch to re-enter dispute if the prospect of further redundancies arises.

Meanwhile we will continue to campaign over matters that affect members, such as intolerable workloads, irresponsible use of AI, and the lack of democracy and accountability in the university’s governance structures. We will continue to involve ourselves in the wider community, whether through offering solidarity to Palestinians or campaigning against the far right. We will offer our backing to other union branches taking action in the coming months.

Through all this, we hope that members will continue to help us build and strengthen the UCU so that we can ensure that our coming struggles are even more effective.