University staff begin strike action over job cuts and redundancy fears

University staff have begun two days of strike action in a dispute over job cuts and possible compulsory redundancies. Members of the University and College Union (UCU) at Heriot-Watt University have walked out today as a long-running dispute over job losses rumbles on. Staff will be on picket lines during the morning at the main entrance to the university campus. Union members at the university have taken ten days of strike action since March, but recent strikes planned for June were called off during last-minute talks when a commitment was made that there would be no compulsory redundancies in the Department of Languages and Intercultural Studies before spring 2027. The union said that the promise has not been kept and that management is now looking at possible compulsory redundancies. T