Bad news from UK (fwd)

[K. Dziwirek]

I am posting this for a colleague, I apologize if you have already seen
this.

Katarzyna Dziwirek

From: Peter Duncan  <pduncan at ssees.ac.uk>
Tue, 19 Aug 1997 11:20:11 +0100
To: Russian-Studies at mailbase.ac.uk
Subject: Threat to SSEES staff

Message from Pete Duncan, Acting President of SSEES AUT

As a result of the financial crisis facing the School of
Slavonic and East European Studies, University of London,
seven members of the academic staff have been asked to
take voluntary early retirement. The Director, Professor
Michael Branch, has sent them all a letter saying that
their posts "can longer be sustained" [sic].

The staff affected are as follows:

Daniel Abondolo (Hungarian)
Jim Dingley (Ukrainian)
Martin McCauley (Politics)
Diana Myers (Russian)
Dusan Puvacic (Serbian and Croatian)
Peter Sherwood (Hungarian)
David Short (Czech and Slovak)

This list includes some of the most well-known figures in
their fields. One was highlighted in the RAE, and another is
responsible for one of the largest externally funded projects
in the School.

The Director has applied to HEFCE (the Higher Education
Funding Council for England) for restructuring funds, part
of which would be intended to compensate those taking early
retirement.  How much he will succeed in getting remains
to be seen.  Whether the sums offered in compensation
will be acceptable is another question.

Five of the members of the staff, who are in the Department of East
European Languages and Culture (EELC), have been told
that their posts will end because of
the opening of a language unit in
the Department of East European Languages and Culture.
This is defended by reference to the report of   Ulrich
Kratz of SOAS which was commissioned by the Director. In
reality, however, Dr Kratz stated that, "...to strengthen
research active units, staff who see it as their main vocation
to contribute to the teaching of a newly designed degree
programme and not to research, might be located in a
language teaching unit yet to be created." There was no
suggestion that staff would have their contracts terminated
or that teaching in the unit should be divorced from
research. He also said that the unit should "include teachers
from the Russian Department."

The remaining two members of staff (Dr Myers and Dr McCauley) were told
that their posts would terminate following scrutiny of the work of their
department (Russian and Social Sciences, respectively). Who conducted this
scrutiny and what this scrutiny consisted of is unknown.  Moreover, it has
become clear that the 7 July meeting of the School's Strategic Issues
Management Group (SIG), which decided that the early retirement letters
should be sent out, were not told to whom the letters were going to be
sent. In the SIG minutes for 7 July, there is no reference to anyone other
than the members of EELC being targeted. The implication is that the
selection of the seven colleagues was decided by the Director and a small
number of other people.  Staff are concerned that the implementation of all
this is being pushed through in the summer vacation, without discussion in
the School. AUT wrote to the Director asking that the meetings of 7 July
which took some of these decisions be postponed, but he went ahead with
them.

It is intended that the teaching in the language unit will be
done by part-time staff. A dangerous precedent is being set
where full-time academic staff may be dismissed and
replaced by others employed much more cheaply, as has
been occurring in further education. This would have the
effect of demoralising existing members of staff and
lowering teaching standards. Today the teachers of East
European languages have been selected; but the same could
be done to teachers of Russian History or East European
Politics. What is happening now is a threat to each member
of  staff.

It seems that the questioning of some members of staff in
May about their research plans was not a genuine attempt to
raise the research activity of the School, but was intended to
push them towards accepting early retirement.The costs of
past and current mistakes, by those senior managers with
responsibility for the budget, should not be borne by the
other academic, academic-related, and clerical staff of the
School. AUT is trying to ensure

*that there are no compulsory redundancies;
*that nobody is dismissed unfairly;
*that all early retirements are genuinely voluntary; and
*that all who leave the employment of the School receive
fair compensation.

I would be grateful for support for those under
threat of losing their jobs.

Thank you for your attention.

Pete Duncan, Acting President, SSEES AUT
0171-637 4934 ext 4056
18 August 1997