Our local support fund has been set up to aid members in fighting redundancies and in taking part in Goldsmiths UCU’s local industrial action as a result of the Transformation Programme dispute, which threatens to make compulsory redundancies equivalent to 130 jobs and significant restructuring of the University across its collegial and administrative services and academic portfolio. Funds will help subsidise legal costs, participation in strike action and salary deductions. This fund is particularly important for those on precarious contracts and available for all staff participating in industrial action. Please help circulate information, this fund is often a lifeline for members at risk of redundancy and taking action against management’s hostile policies. We welcome all forms of solidarity from raising awareness, agitating alongside us in addition to personal, branch and wider union donations.
We hope you will also raise the following motion at your union branch/in your local organisation.
GUCU SUPPORT FUND MOTION
This branch notes that:
- Goldsmiths UCU (GUCU) is in dispute with the Senior Management Team (SMT)
at Goldsmiths, University of London over 130 planned redundancies as part
of SMT’s Transformation Programme aimed, at reducing staff costs to meet an
unwarranted savings target of £20 million. - The Transformation Programme signals a serious threat to 11 out of 19
departments at Goldsmiths and an existential threat to the University more
broadly - The proposed restructuring that accompanies these redundancies will undermine
the autonomy of departments (soon to be only ‘subject’ areas), lecturers and
researchers, increasingly centralising power over budgets, decision-making,
academic portfolios and procedures with SMT. - The previous Recovery Programme restructure at Goldsmiths has left a lasting
detrimental effect on the functioning of the university, such that basic services
for staff and students are dysfunctional and workloads have reached a record
high. - SMT has spent an undisclosed sum on four different consultant firms –
PriceWaterhouseCoopers, SUMS, Curiositas and Six Ravens Consulting – and
untold costs on employment lawyers and HR change managers related to the
restructuring. - SMT has employed union-busting tactics in the past, and is currently delaying
payment to key GUCU branch officials for carrying out trade union activities. - GUCU members remain determined to fight for decent working conditions for all
staff at Goldsmiths.
This branch believes that:
- SMT has secured sufficient savings of £10.1 million through redundancy
mitigation measures that have included a Voluntary Severance Scheme, vacancy
savings and cuts to research budgets. - SMT has cash reserves that amply cover the current shortfall and mean that no
justification exists for the scale and speed of these cuts. - SMT has refused to explore alternatives to cuts based on a complete lack of
interest in what Goldsmiths has to offer. - SMT has tried to compensate for their own inability to manage the college with
the repeated use of expensive consultants and managers. - A vision for growth is urgently needed as is a prioritisation of our marketing and
recruitment strategies. - The planned cuts at Goldsmiths follow a pattern of financialisation increasingly
seen across UK Higher Education Institutions, whereby financial pressures from
banking partners are used to justify restructures that prioritise the cutting of
frontline staff while increasing managerial costs. - The planned cuts at Goldsmiths are an attack on the Arts, Humanities and Social
Sciences across the sector, undergirded by a Tory Government agenda. - The battle against redundancies and restructuring of Goldsmiths make GUCU’s
dispute one of national significance.
This branch resolves to:
- Issue a public statement of solidarity with GUCU’s dispute.
- Make a contribution to GUCU’s strike fund.
- Invite a GUCU striker to a branch meeting.
- Write to Frances Corner (Warden) at f.corner@gold.ac.uk and
wardensoffice@gold.ac.uk and Dinah Caine (Chair of Council) at
d.caine@gold.ac.uk expressing opposition to the redundancies and restructuring. - Actively support and publicise GUCU’s dispute, industrial action and campaign
events through social media, trade union contacts and beyond.
Ways of contributing to our support fund
Bank transfer details below or pay direct online here:
Name: UCU Goldsmith College Hardship Fund
Account number: 20392303
Sort-code 60-83-01
Cheques payable to:
UCU Goldsmith College Hardship Fund
Office 4
18 Laurie Grove
London, SE14 6NH
Why are we balloting?
On Wednesday 28th March Goldsmiths’ Senior Management Team (SMT) served GUCU notice of their intention to make compulsory redundancies equivalent to 130 jobs. Given that so many academic staff at Goldsmiths are employed on fractional/part time contracts, it is safe to assume that these redundancies will impact far more than 130 members of staff. The total number of academic contracted staff at Goldsmiths is 769 of which 361 are within the eleven departments that have been declared ‘in scope’. These include 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, departments that have helped define Goldsmiths as an internationally renowned centre for critical and innovative thought within the Arts and Humanities.
The scope of the Transformation Programme is such that no department or programme will remain unaffected. To date, across ALL Departments, Associate Lecturer budgets have been slashed, ‘vacant’ posts deleted and research budgets cut. Furthermore, management has forced all academic staff to furiously reduce and/or rewrite modules and close programmes as part of its Portfolio Enhancement and Simplification (PSE), with little regard for how this perilously jeopardises department capacity to recruit and retain students for the new academic year and further condemns those departments already in scope by forcing them to reduce their offer. Finally, with £1 million in savings sought from Professional Services, and with further savings proposed across the next two academic years, more redundancies targeting our colleagues in administrative teams are on the horizon
SMT have said that job cuts are unavoidable because of a £13.1 million shortfall due to under-recruitment (we are yet to receive an answer on how much of this was due to failures in the recruitment process). This is in spite of £10.1 million savings netted so far through the Voluntary Severance Scheme (VSS), vacancy savings, and cuts to the associate lecturers and research budget. They claim to need a further £8 million now in compulsory redundancies (27.7% of our academic staff budget) in order to meet a target of £20 million in recurrent savings by the end of the 2024/2025 academic year.
There is no justification for the scale and speed of this highly reckless target.
They use the sector-wide challenges (falling value of fees and declining international recruitment) to justify these savings, presupposing their own inability to do anything to increase our recruitment while placing the blame squarely on academic staff. They often refer to the potential to breach a covenant as a reason for the acceleration of savings. Current cash reserves mean that, even if we were to breach a covenant, we would be able to repay our loan and early repayment charge without going below our statutory cash reserves.
GUCU understands the need to cut costs, but we need to do this in a way that doesn’t put the whole institution at risk. There is no imperative to advance with all facets of the programme at such speed and to do so poses a huge existential threat to the University.
What is the alternative?
GUCU is asking why management can’t settle with the £10 million savings already made, stop spending resources on unnecessary consultants – SMT are currently engaging four different consultancy firms to undertake the work of the Transformation Programme – and instead adopt a strategy for how to grow by appraising their marketing and recruitment approach and building on Goldsmiths’ global reputation.
We believe there is a clear alternative to mass redundancies and to this end we are balloting for industrial action.