HELP GOLDSMITHS UCU FIGHT MASS REDUNDANCIES!
Donation protected
The GUCU Hardship Fund supports members currently undertaking a Marking and Assessment Boycott to oppose Goldsmiths Senior Management Team’s (SMT) intention to make compulsory redundancies equivalent to 132 jobs. With half the academic staff now in scope and facing losing their job, SMT have chosen to retaliate with 50% deductions to pay throughout the length of the action. By donating to this fund, we can ensure that members can continue to fight these unnecessary job losses.
Please donate what you can. Please leave a message of solidarity when you do. Please share this with friends and colleagues where you can.
More info:
On 28 March, SMT served notice of their intention to make compulsory redundancies equivalent to 132 jobs as part of their Transformation Programme, a restructuring exercise that, if pushed through, will see the college altered beyond recognition. With so many academic staff at Goldsmiths employed on fractional or fixed term contracts, it is safe to assume that these redundancies will affect far more than 132 members of staff, and have long term effects on Goldsmiths current reputation as an internationally renowned centre for critical and innovative thought in the Arts & Humanities. The departments currently in scope are Anthropology, Educational Studies, English and Creative Writing (ECW), History, Music, Politics & International Relations, Psychology, Social, Therapeutic & Community Studies (STaCS), Sociology, Theatre & Performance (TaP), and Visual Cultures, but the full extent of the Transformation Programme will mean no department will remain unaffected.
There is no financial imperative for this level of redundancies. SMT have reported a £13.1 million shortfall in student recruitment, but have stated a need to save £20 million from the college operating budget overall, including the doubling of the capital expenditure budget which the costs of which they have yet to account for. £10.1 million has already been saved through a Voluntary Severance Scheme (VSS), vacancy savings and cuts to associate lecturer and research budgets, and with a cash flow balance of £51.9 million as of February 2024, is in a position to pay off its current loans with any early repayment surcharge, remain within statutory cash reserve amounts and still absorb this shortfall. GUCU understands the need to cut costs in the face of more general sector-wide challenges, but it needs to be done in a way that doesn’t put the whole institution at risk.
We believe there is a clear alternative to mass redundancies, and since the 18th April have been opposing the Transformation Programme with a Marking and Assessment Boycott. We are writing to ask if your organisation would consider a solidarity donation for our striking workers, who have now been threatened by senior management with a 50% deduction to salary for every month of the action in response. Any donation will mean all of our members can take part for the length of the action in the face of these punitive measures.
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2024/apr/11/the-goldsmiths-crisis-how-cuts-and-culture-wars-sent-universities-into-a-death-spiral
https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2024/05/09/artist-steve-mcqueen-condemns-planned-job-cuts-at-goldsmiths
For updates:
Organizer
Ash Reid
Organizer
England