June update
Redundancies, severances, more course closures and no dignity at work: the Corporate machinery in top form and full swing
The past few weeks (months, years...) have been difficult for many colleagues at Northumbria University. Sadly, this is business as usual: the divisive, ruthless and counterproductive transformation of what once was a good employer into an antisocial and antagonistic corporation is well under way. Our University, immersed in a permanent identity crisis brought about by its top down, dogmatic strategists, seems a world apart from the inspirational enhancer of social mobility, creativity, knowledge, and human and economic growth in the North East that it could be; it also seems another world apart from its desired destination. We are, decidedly, in no man's land.
In the midst of a national dispute on fair pay, your local union has been busier than ever because of an unprecedented set of unsettling moves that have made many members vulnerable to the side effects of Vision 2025, with their courses, their livelihoods and their health becoming collateral damage, when not a fully intended target, in the pursuit of savings, synergies and streamlines, pawns in a managerial chess board.
Read more ...