Derry Councillors vote to intervene in Ulster University redundancy dispute
Cross-party motion brings campus unions and university management together to keep the battle for North West higher education on the front foot.
Derry City and Strabane District Council will invite Ulster University and union representatives, and the Economy Minister, to council to discuss the potential UU job losses and Magee expansion.
At May’s council meeting People Before Profit councillor Shaun Harkin proposed a meeting between UU Vice-Chancellor, Paul Bartholomew, the Minister, and UCU, Unison and UNITE, about the 450 proposed job cuts and educational provision, particularly the Magee expansion.
Councillor Harkin said he recently attended three-day protests at each UU campus and spoke with representatives there from UCU, Unite, and Unison.
He said they were supportive of his motion at April's council meeting, to write to UU to rescind the proposed redundancies and write to the Minister for an urgent intervention, but were also keen to come to council to “present their case”.
“They would like us to invite in Paul Bartholomew and I think that that would be very important for us to,” he added.
“We can't allow this issue to fall away simply because it's not in the headlines of the newspapers anymore and I think this is an important enough issue that we need to be on the front foot.
“It's essentially to invite in all those who are impacted by this decision and all those who can play a role in reversing it or undoing it.”
In response to Sinn Féin councillor councillor Christopher Jackson, who was concerned that council was 'replicating' the April proposal, councillor Harkin said: “We didn't actually invite in the unions, Paul Bartholomew, or the Economy Minister.
We can't allow this issue to fall away simply because it's not in the headlines of the newspapers anymore and I think this is an important enough issue that we need to be on the front foot.
“We did agree to write to Paul Bartholomew and the Minister and there hasn't been any response yet.
“Our demands aren't changing but the unions definitely want to come in and speak to the councillors, and I think we should also ask Paul Bartholomew to do the same. That's something the lecturers and staff at Magee are very eager for the council to be doing too.”
SDLP councillor Rory Farrell seconded the proposal and said that while there was an expansion plan in place, there is “no budget attached to deliver the student places”.
He concluded: “That's really, really concerning and they’ve added in the mix that they need to lose 450 valued members of staff to balance their books.
“So this is important, it is time-bound, and we agree with councillor Harkin that we need to have face-to-face discussions with the unions, with the university and with the Minister, because this city and district has argued for expansion for decades.”