Amnesty International UK members have voted in favour of a restructure of the organisation which could see up to 17 UK jobs lost, but no redundancies will be made until the board meets again.

The vote came at the organisation’s annual general meeting at Warwick University on the weekend and follows months of tussle with staff and unions, including mass strike action, over the proposed job cuts.

But while supporting the proposed restructure, Amnesty International members voted also to postpone any “irreversible and expensive changes” until after the organisation’s International Council Meeting (ICM) in August. The board will be meeting in the next few weeks to decide what this means for the AIUK.

The campaigning organisation has been attempting to pass the restructure since last autumn, but opposition from staff and unions has meant the changes have yet to go through. A meeting of the board in February had resulted in the decision to postpone redundancies until after last weekend’s AGM.

The redundancies are part of a global restructure of the Amnesty movement which will see Amnesty International UK which aims to save £2.5m a year in order to contribute more to the international Amnesty movement. Other national Amnesty charters will also be increasing their contributions to the global organisation. The restructure is designed to refocus Amnesty’s presence in the countries and region in which it most works; in the ‘global south and east’.

The ICM has in the past supported the restructure, dubbed ‘Moving Closer to the Ground’.

AIUK director Kate Allen said: “We are grateful to our members for the care and deliberation they have shown. Despite some difficult conversations, the AGM finished in a very positive spirit and we’ll go forward in that same spirit.”

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