Conflict looming

Dundee University is setting itself on course for "major conflict" if it does not rule out compulsory redundancies resulting from its current sustainability review.

The warning comes from Dundee's University and College Union, which is threatening industrial action in the wake of management plans to make savings of £4.7 million over the next four years.

The local union set up a petition asking for a national campaign over institutional cuts that has already won backing from a number of individuals and branches. It calls on the union leadership to start preparing sanctions such as an academic boycott against institutions that press on with "job losses, campus closures, and department/ course privatisation".