University of Lincoln staff hold one-day strike

Staff at the University of Lincoln will strike on Friday over plans to cut jobs.

The University and College Union (UCU) said it would form a picket line and hand out flyers to prospective students visiting the campus for an open day.

UCU branch chair, Dr Owen Clayton, said industrial action was taking place because “the university hasn’t ruled out compulsory redundancies”.

In a statement, the university said it aimed “to mitigate the need” for compulsory job losses.

The dispute is over the university’s proposals to cut up to 285 staff across a number of areas, including the Lincoln International Business School and the history department.

Dr Clayton said the university was “saying that they need to do this for financial reasons yet, at the same time, is hiring people and opening up new areas”.

He said the university was “pushing to have larger and larger class sizes”, which the university denied.

The university previously said the 285 figure was a “worst case scenario” and the UK higher education sector was “undergoing significant change”.

In a statement, it said it had “reduced costs” to “protect average class sizes” and was aiming “to mitigate the need for compulsory redundancies”.

“The changes we are making now respond to growing areas of student demand and the changing needs of our communities,” it said.

“This includes the development of our healthcare provision which will deliver a highly skilled NHS workforce in our region.”