UCL Management are pushing ahead with wholesale reforms to the status of academic staff. The proposed changes remove protection from compulsory redundancy written into the UCL Stautes that academics have historically enjoyed in order to preserve academic freedom of inquiry at UCL.
These proposals ultimately remove all barriers and gives UCL Management a free hand to restructure or shut entire departments as they see fit. That means firing your lecturers and teachers, closing your courses, breaking up your research groups and reducing your contact hours. UCL Students cannot simply stand by and watch while this happens.
UCL UCU (a trade union for academic and academic support staff) have launched a vigorous campaign around Statute 18 to defend these rights, and on Tuesday night UCLU Council voted unanimously to join the camapign.
We will be organising a rally at the upcoming meeting of Academic Board on the 10th July at 3:30pm outside the Darwin Lecture Theatre. You can find out more about the campaign and how to get involved at http://uclu.org/statute18 or you can contact Luke Durigan - Education and Campaigns Officer at ec.officer@ucl.ac.uk.
