This motion was passed at a GUCU branch meeting Weds, 22 Sep 2021, (154 for, 1 against, 2 abstentions).
This branch notes that:
- Management are threatening compulsory redundancies which may lead to 80-100 staff losing their jobs at Goldsmiths.
- At last week’s branch meeting, an unprecedented number of members voted in support of Goldsmiths UCU issuing a ‘failure to agree’ notice to SMT, opposing all compulsory redundancies, opposing the proposed process and selection criteria for redundancies, and citing inadequate consultation over the scale and timetable.
- GUCU issued this notice, beginning the process of entering into a formal dispute over the proposed redundancies.
- Professional services staff in departments across the College have received a letter informing them that they are ‘at risk’.
- An indicative ballot is the first step in the process of preparing the branch to carry out a formal ballot, which if successful will enable us to take industrial action before management plans to send out redundancy notices in November.
This branch believes:
- Individual consultation meetings should not take place until the process of collective consultations with the unions has been completed.
- Plans to ballot for industrial action should take place as soon as possible, in order to stop the threatened redundancies and give us maximum leverage in negotiations.
- The option of undertaking all forms of industrial action needs to be open to the branch, in order to have the best chance of stopping the redundancies and to respond to the changing national and local situation.
This branch resolves:
- To support having all forms of industrial action available to us, including:
- ASOS
- ASOS: Marking and assessment boycott
- ASOS: Action targeting student recruitment and discovery days
- ASOS: Non-compliance with individual consultation and with procedures which directly or indirectly select individual staff for compulsory redundancies
- ASOS: Refusal to participate in face-to-face teaching, administrative and other work
- Full strike
- To publicise GUCU’s campaign as widely as possible, asking all branches for messages of solidarity and support.
- To provide dedicated financial support to members of staff participating in industrial action.
- To seek UCU Higher Education Committee support for this dispute as a dispute of national significance and of ‘greylisting’ Goldsmiths as a form of escalation.