In the wake of potential job losses at Dundee University, the principal Iain Gillespie and his senior management team should show some solidarity with the workforce.
That means declining the wage rises they were awarded in April, before they declared a gaping funding hole of £30 million in the university budget.
If the top level of management has any notion of real public service and common decency they’ll forgo or hand back the pay boosts they’ve been given while the rest of the workforce face an uncertain Christmas and future.
At a time when everyone is being asked to tighten their belts, the principal has to struggle by on a paltry £5,865 a week as he contemplates how to fill the void created by the failure to attract enough fee-paying international students.
And while you’re pondering whether you could manage your weekly shop on his modest earnings of £305,000 a year (plus generous expenses), spare a thought too for another senior member of the institution, Wendy Alexander, who must eke things out on an annual salary of at least £190,000.
One thing is certain – with the university facing “inevitable” job losses, the big earners are unlikely to be among them.
If and when the cuts come for the workers, it’ll no doubt be janitorial, admin and support staff and poorly paid junior lecturers who bear the brunt of the failure of senior management to address the problem long before it got to this grim stage.
‘I queried lump sum plans’
Shortly after I was elected rector of Dundee University by the students in 2019, the principal, Professor Andrew Atherton, quit after just ten months in the post.
This came after The Courier revealed he’d been suspended in a row over rent payments on the high-quality university house he’d been staying in.
There had also been allegations of bullying from some members of staff.
At a university meeting, the then-Lord Provost Ian Borthwick and I both queried plans to pay Mr Atherton a lump sum as part of his leaving package.
We wondered why if an employee was leaving of his own accord, and in a clouded fog of uncertainty as to the exact reasons for his departure, he should be compensated at all.
No satisfactory answer was received, but it confirmed my belief that those in exalted positions of power usually look after their own interests while the ordinary workers are left to fend for themselves.
The university is a hugely important part of Dundee’s social fabric.
It’s not only a major employer – it also has a world class reputation in many of its areas of research and teaching, so its value to the city and to Scotland is immense.
It is vital that it remains a top academic attraction for students from all parts of the globe.
Wage rise message
Senior management earn their eye-watering salaries by comparison to the average worker because they’re expected to run businesses and institutions with competence and sure-footedness.
Anyone can make cuts; the secret of good management is ensuring that cuts aren’t needed and that the business prospers.
If those running the university are to prove worthy of their huge wage packets, they need to show they’re earning them.
That should involve presenting a plan to avoid damaging job losses and filling the funding gap.
But while the picture is uncertain – whether through falling student numbers, increased National Insurance costs or whatever – the rejection of a wage rise from those already very highly paid would send a message that everyone is in it together.
When you enjoy good health it’s easy to take it for granted.
Ahead of money and material possessions, and whether a believer or an atheist, it’s a blessing and a gift.
I was speaking at a football night in last week for a broadcasting pal who was raising funds for his kirk.
There was a good turnout, and I could see in the front row a fella who looked familiar but who I couldn’t place.
At the end of the night he introduced himself and I immediately connected his face with his name.
I asked what he’d been doing and his answer took the wind from my sails: “Dying” he replied.
It transpired he’d been abroad for some years but returned home and was receiving kidney dialysis.
I remembered him as an energetic bloke and he’s certainly not lying down to things.
My chance meeting with a lad a fair bit younger than myself, struggling with illness when he should be in the prime of his life, left me counting my many blessings.
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