Goldsmiths academics to strike over ‘incomprehensible’ redundancies

The UCU general secretary, Jo Grady, said the scale of the cuts proposed under Goldsmiths’ restructuring programme was “almost incomprehensible”, adding: “It is no wonder that staff have overwhelmingly voted for industrial action.

Our members at the university have the union’s full backing, this includes access to our local defence fund to support sustained industrial action.

The job cuts are the latest in a series of redundancies at Goldsmiths and across higher education, as universities struggle with financial pressures because of the declining real-terms value of tuition fees and falls in international student numbers.

Departments affected include anthropology, English and creative writing, history, music, psychology, sociology, theatre and performance and visual cultures, with some losing half of their staff, according to the UCU, which in an earlier statement said would represent the “biggest assault on jobs at any UK university in recent years”.

Goldsmiths is renowned for its strength in the creative arts and humanities, with graduates including the film director Steve McQueen, the fashion designer Vivienne Westwood, the writer Bernardine Evaristo, the poet Linton Kwesi Johnson, the musician Damon Albarn and the artists Tracey Emin and Antony Gormley.

A spokesperson for Goldsmiths said: “Universities across the country are facing difficult challenges borne of a funding system that is widely acknowledged to be no longer fit for purpose.