University strike closer as arbitration collapses

STRIKE action over a jobs row at Leeds University has moved a step closer with the collapse of arbitration talks between union leaders and management.

The University and College Union (UCU) has already voted for a strike in a dispute over the and a major cost-cutting programme.

The university is trying to save 35m from 2011 in expectation of funding cuts.

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Leeds University's UCU president, Prof Malcolm Povey, said the university side had insisted on the right to make compulsory redundancies. But vice chancellor Prof Michael Arthur wrote to staff saying: "While we have been prepared to repeat our undertaking to do everything we can to avoid compulsory redundancies... across the university, no responsible employer could give an undertaking of this kind in particular at a time of massive public expenditure cuts and in a recession."