Strike action at University College London has been suspended after management pulled back from making the institution¡¯s first compulsory redundancies among academics.

Members of the University and College Union had been set to strike on 5 May in protest at plans for job cuts in the Faculty of Life Sciences.

The university had said it would set up a redundancy committee to select individual scholars for the axe, a move required by its constitution in the event of academics being laid off.

The UCU feared compulsory redundancies in the life sciences would have set a wider precedent as management seek 6 per cent savings across the institution. Compulsory redundancies would threaten academics¡¯ freedom of inquiry, union members argued.

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But in a statement released today, UCL says that Mary Collins, its dean of life sciences, ¡°plans to advise UCL council, no later than 14 May, that a redundancy committee to reduce the number of academic posts in the faculty will not be necessary¡±.

¡°She will be able to do this as soon as all volunteers have been able to formally confirm acceptance of their voluntary severance and early retirement packages,¡± it says.

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The statement adds: ¡°UCL has established a joint consultative group to review future workforce planning and to revise [its] organisational change and redeployment policies in light of recent experience.

¡°As a result of these assurances, the UCU has today agreed to suspend its dispute and the strike action called for 5 May will not now go ahead.¡±

Sean Wallis, UCU branch president, said: ¡°If it transpires that UCL goes back on the agreement or goes through with the redundancy committee, then the dispute is back on. It is a suspension.¡±

Mr Wallis said UCL had suggested that it wants to cut about 20 jobs in the life sciences, although it had not put a definite figure on the table.

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¡°There is obviously a lot of tension about whether UCL is genuinely making voluntary redundancies with the threat of the academic redundancy committee hanging [over staff],¡± he added.

john.morgan@tsleducation.com