Another account of today’s staff meeting (if you have anything to add, please leave a comment or send it to us):
I went along to Farthing’s presentation today. It’s amazing how many words that man can say without saying anything.
- When questioned about outsourcing, Farthing said he has no intention of making redundancies. But if outsourcing goes ahead Michael, it won’t be your decision because staff will be employed by an independent company! I smell bullshit.
- Farthing said outsourcing is not about redundancies, but being “agile and flexible”. Translation: casualisation – the kind of insecure jobs from the private sector – temp, casual, zero-hours and agency contracts, and getting rid of long-term obligations to staff like pensions. I’ve worked plenty of jobs like this before. ‘Flexibility’ means Sussex workers bending over backwards!
- Farthing talked about the need for the university to make a “surplus”. Another word for that is profit – turning our university into just another corporation. After all, we’ve got 31 managers on 6-figure salaries already.
- Farthing talked about “the student experience” while hired goon Roger Morgan man-handled a student out of the back of the meeting. Anyone who works at Sussex knows that management don’t care about students’ education. Students are just customers to keep their ‘surplus’ rolling in.
Loads of staff were present who affected by the threatened outsourcing. People did not seem satisfied with Farthing’s replies to their questions.
Posted by Anonymous | May 29, 2012, 7:30 pmHe seemed to say a lot without actually answering the questions thrown at him. Full of hot air and lies!
Posted by Anonymous | May 29, 2012, 9:06 pmI wish Management would tell us why they have stripped EFM’S budget to virtually nothing over the last 4 years, whilst we have still delivered a good service, only to tell us recently that we cannot cope with the expected growth of students and therfore need outsourcing – seems to me Duffy & Farthing have been planning this for oh about 4 years, this is a massive failure of senior management 4 years ago, they should all be bloody outsourced as they are clearly not efficient – lets re-structure senior management!!!!
Posted by Anonymous | May 30, 2012, 1:36 pmYes, I think they’ve been planning this for a while…. sneaky bastards
Posted by Anonymous | May 31, 2012, 9:57 amIn the second VC meeting a question was raised about possible knock on effects in other areas (e.g. personnel, finance etc) Summerville another of Farthings dream team, insisted that people in finance were included in the 235 and in the future any “restructuring” of personnel staff would be because of the introduction of new computer systems !!! MORE BULLSHIT !!!!
Posted by Anonymous | May 31, 2012, 10:52 amAs someone who has been waiting for the university and union to negotiate loss of conditioned overtime and a heavy pay cut for the last 3yrs, and introduce a rota which quite clearly doesn’t stand up on paper things now seem a little clearer! Once contracted out I’m no longer part of the uni so I presume the closure days will go, adopt the other practice quite common now and give me my pay in hours and all of a sudden things look different. As others have said before me it looks like the plan has been stewing for a while. All this on top of a reduction in staffing levels of 25% already suffered.
Posted by Anonymous | May 31, 2012, 4:26 pmWhy are new positions for Catering and estates only for a fixed term only – surely they should be transferred over like the rest of the staff affected. I believe they are starting reduncies before the process has even started. Check out the Jobs page on the University home pages, then ask HR why????????
Posted by Anonymous | June 13, 2012, 12:27 pmYou’re right! and those fixed terms jobs are all only until 31.July 2013 – the privatised services are meant to come into effect on 1. August 2013……………
Posted by ed worker | June 13, 2012, 3:55 pmI saw these advertised last week and thought the same thing. Has anyone considered that Farthings goal is not about efficiency and growth, it is about keeping his ‘friends’ in India and China happy and making sure Sussex can take thousands of international students every year, I understand Farthing prefers these type of students as they create more revenue. Perhaps one day he will stop feeding us his BS, but until then remember it is all about efficiency and growth and in no way anything to do an increase of revenue, because all those 9 grands are clearly not enough to fulfil Farthings Sussex Dream!
Posted by Anonymous | June 19, 2012, 1:46 pm