As some of you may know, we, five colleagues in Translation and Interpreting — specialists in Arabic, Chinese and Italian, all either non-British nationals and/or from ethnic minority backgrounds — received a letter of redundancy risk at the beginning of June 2026.

Two weeks before the letter was sent, the head of LCAHM had notified us of the closure of the MA in Translation Studies and the MA in English-Chinese Interpreting. The redundancy consultations lasted for 2 months and ended on the 3rd August, and we are now facing dismissal. The individual consultations were supposed to be an opportunity to discuss alternatives to the redundancy. Despite what HR and the Head of School had anticipated, the consultations were not genuine.

All our alternative teaching proposals – from teaching out of the remaining modules in the distance learning MA in Translation, to the offer of teaching units in various modules across or outside our School – were dismissed without detailed and meaningful responses, and even when teaching had already been offered to us by module conveners. Our alternative MA proposals presented during the consultations were also dismissed. Our requests for clarification and further information regarding these and the business case were, in most cases, ignored. The University refused to provide us with WAM modeling for the teaching out, produced a financial case with no figures, and refused every formal grievance we submitted before the end of the consultations without a hearing.

Members of the university’s governing Council have been asked, on the 17th August, to approve these redundancies by email, without a meeting. We were previously told that Council would consider an outcome on 14 October 2026. Accelerating to a written resolution from 17 August — immediately after the close of consultation, and before the union’s members could collectively respond — is difficult to reconcile with the University’s stated commitment to a “meaningful and thorough consultation” and with the requirement under section 188 TULRCA that consultation be undertaken while the proposals are genuinely capable of being influenced. The University justified this as a wish to avoid “a prolonged period of uncertainty for affected colleagues.” The proper way to reduce that uncertainty was to provide the outstanding information and to consult properly, not to shorten the time for considering representations and remove Council’s deliberation. A decision reached before representations have been genuinely weighed does not resolve uncertainty; it pre-empts it.

This is one of six redundancy rounds since July 2025 that have affected UCU members, five of which have shown an overwhelming overrepresentation of staff from either an ethnic minority background and/or a non-British national. Throughout the process, the University has refused to show the union or us its equality impact assessment. The University has justified its choice of the pool by the heavy involvement of those hit by the redundancy notice in teaching the ceased MA in Translation and in English-Chinese Interpreting. However, we know that there are at least a couple of other colleagues, “non-ethnic members of staff,” who were equally involved in those MAs as those chosen as targets and who did not receive redundancy risk notification. We believe thus that this is a case of ethnic discrimination. Under section 9 of the Equality Act 2010, race includes color, nationality, and ethnic or national origins. The concern raised throughout this consultation is that the pool falls disproportionately on staff associated with Chinese, Arabic and Italian language specialisms — a concern about national origins.

This matters well beyond the five of us directly at risk. Other programs in Modern Languages have seen low and declining recruitment over a sustained period without closure or redundancies, and the university has not explained the criteria by which this provision alone was singled out. What happens to Translation and Interpreting sets the pattern for how anyone could be treated next.

Here is why we ask for your support. The Union has strongly supported us, but everything we have asked for so far—grievances, requests for the equality assessment, and the financial modelling for the teach-out—has been met with refusal. Management engages in good faith with a union only when it has to and when organised members put pressure on it to take us seriously. If we are to have any chance at collective action to defend these posts and prevent compulsory redundancies, we will need to organize — department by department, colleague by colleague.

For everyone’s diary, we invite you to a Union meeting on Thursday 3 September, 1:30–2:30 pm, via Zoom where members will decide our next steps to get management to engage in good faith with the union and to prevent compulsory redundancies. Decisions taken there will shape what happens next, and Modern Languages voices, especially, need to be in the room.

In hope and Solidarity,

Your Translation and Interpreting Colleagues and UCU Union Committee