Union members at Bangor University have passed a motion of no confidence in the institution’s vice-chancellor and chief financial officer over job cuts. 

The vote passed with no opposition in a general meeting on 18 August, and the University and College Union (UCU) branch said it was preparing a formal industrial action ballot. 

Earlier this year, Bangor announced that about 200 jobs would go after the university missed student recruitment targets.

Bangor UCU vice-president Vivek Thuppil said cuts had pushed members “to breaking point”. 

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“With the departure of hundreds of staff already, they are already facing impossible workloads. With only two weeks to go until classes begin, departments still do not have clarity on who is teaching what.”

The branch leaders said they had delayed the publication of the vote while negotiating with management but that the university had decided to “plough ahead with their cuts strategy”.

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A spokesperson for Bangor University said the recent restructure "was a difficult but necessary step to help us meet financial targets and secure essential savings".

They said the university had been working with staff and unions to avoid compulsory redundancies "wherever possible". 

"Over 200 staff have left the University through retirement, resignations or voluntary severance [and] less than 10 posts remain at risk," they said. 

"We recognise that restructuring has caused stress and uncertainty for staff and students, and we remain committed to supporting the wellbeing of our community. This exercise, however, was an unavoidable and essential part of securing the university’s long-term future in a highly challenging...environment.”

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Thuppil claimed that vice-chancellor Edmund Burke and chief financial officer Martyn Riddleston, who both previously worked at Leicester University, had “chosen to double down on the same failed strategy of cuts that they pushed through” at Leicester. 

Burke served as deputy vice-chancellor at Leicester during a round of redundancies in 2021. Riddleston served as chief operating officer during this period. 

The union also criticised the use of £1.4 million in additional funding granted to the institution by the Welsh government earlier this year, claiming it had been spent on a medical school instead of in a way “that would protect jobs”.

“Whilst management claim that the tertiary education regulator Medr did not convey any government intent behind this funding to save jobs, it nonetheless represents a disqualifying lapse in judgement on the part of the university leadership to spend these additional taxpayer funds on unplanned infrastructure at the same time as moving to make staff compulsorily redundant,” Thuppil said. 

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The union said the threat of industrial action in the autumn would remain unless the university management issued a guarantee of no compulsory redundancies for the 2025-26 academic year and rescind any compulsory redundancy notices that had already been issued.

Union members at universities including Edinburgh, Nottingham and Leicester have already taken strike action in the first weeks of the new academic year.

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Lancaster, Sheffield Hallam, Sheffield, Oxford Brookes and Dundee have also announced strike ballots over local disputes.

helen.packer@timeshighereducation.com