University and College Union (UCU) members at Goldsmiths University went on strike this week amid staff redundancy plans.

A staff walk-out was held on Monday and Tuesday this week, with protests taking place outside the university’s Richard Hoggart Building on Lewisham Way.

Goldsmiths had announced a deficit of £12.7 million and an underlying deficit of £6.5 million in its 2020-21 Financial Statements, with the UCU saying part of the university’s “recovery plan” is to cut their work force by as many as 46 jobs.

But the University refused to acknowledge 46 as an accurate figure and said in a statement: “We are not confirming numbers of people because what it’s like with these redundancy processes is at the moment there are people who have been told they are at risk of redundancy.

"We urge Goldsmiths UCU to join the College at ACAS for talks with no pre-conditions on either side to try and find a shared way forward.

“None of us want students to pay the price for this dispute and the impacts of weeks of strike action could be avoided if GUCU are willing to come to the table.

“The reality is Goldsmiths needs to save £9m in ongoing spend by 2023, and as no one has been able to suggest viable alternative proposals which would deliver these savings, a number of staff remain at risk of redundancy."

A spokesperson for Goldsmiths said: “We urge Goldsmiths UCU to join the College at ACAS for talks with no pre-conditions on either side to try and find a shared way forward.

"None of us want students to pay the price for this dispute and the impacts of weeks of strike action could be avoided if GUCU are willing to come to the table.

“The reality is Goldsmiths needs to save £9m in ongoing spend by 2023 to put the College back on a sustainable financial footing.

"As no one has been able to suggest viable alternative proposals which would deliver these savings a number of staff remain at risk of redundancy. We will continue to support and advise those affected and work to minimise the number of redundancies across the College.

“We estimate that meeting wider UCU demands on pay and pensions would cost Goldsmiths an extra £5.6m per year on top of current staff costs of £90.4m per year, we simply cannot afford to meet these demands.

"It is unrealistic to expect that a university such as Goldsmiths can afford to pay over a quarter of people’s salaries into a staff pension scheme.”

University and College Union regional official Barry Jones explained: “Our members will not stand by whilst management threaten the academic integrity of the institution and try to make students and staff pay the price for catastrophic failures of governance.

“It is very simple for university managers to end this dispute, they need to guarantee no compulsory redundancies, save staff jobs and work with us to build a university to be proud of once again.”

The UCU report that further strikes are planned later this month from February 16 to 18 and February 28 to March 4.

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