Lecturers war against university losses (Morning Star)

Monday 13 July 2009

Lecturers at London Metropolitan University will step up their fight against huge job cuts tomorrow with another one-day strike.

UCU and UNISON union members voted overwhelmingly earlier this year to take industrial action after their bosses insisted on making almost a quarter of the university's entire workforce redundant and had already shut down London Met in a strike in May.

UCU union rep Mark Campbell explained that, "as the threat of job cuts - including compulsory redundancies that management wants to make at the end of July - has not been lifted, we have decided to escalate our action.

"London Met's insistence on the loss of 550 full-time education posts, which could end up being as many as 800, needs to be opposed," he stressed.

UNISON assistant branch secretary Max Watson pointed out that management had tried to use the threat of legal action against the unions to postpone the strike.

"Management is clearly scared of our action," he said.

"There is a clear strength of feeling among our members, as nearly 72 percent voted for action, but management's attempt to stop the strike have made people even more determined to fight," Mr Watson revealed.

Mr Campbell added that the demands for job cuts at London Met were "only the tip of the iceberg."

"University and college management are trying to attack staff to make us pay for their self-induced crisis and to use this crisis to remould educational institutions as they want.

"This is, therefore, not simply our fight, but one of the first salvoes in a much bigger fight for the kind of education system that all of us - staff and students - deserve," he insisted.