Scores of leading human resources (HR) academics have signed a letter of protest against job cuts at Keele University’s renowned business school.
As part of a restructure, management at the Staffordshire university has earmarked more than half of the 67 jobs in its School of Economic and Management Studies for redundancy.Within this, 10 human resource management (HRM) and industrial relations teaching posts have been targeted for the axe.
The university said the decision was part of a review of course provision and academic structures.
Unions claim the school ignored normal procedures to rush through the proposed redundancies, establishing a ‘redundancy committee’ that bypassed the normal consultation and decision-making processes. They have now joined forces to protest against the cuts.
Sally Hunt, general secretary of the University and College Union, said: “Keele University can rest assured that if it does decide to try to push through these hurried and nonsensical redundancy plans, we will fight them all the way.”
