Goldsmiths: Forefront of the Battle for Higher Education

Following yesterday’s round-up of universities facing strike action due to staff cuts, George Binette reports on a dispute in southeast London.

Located in Lewisham, Goldsmiths, an affiliate of the University of London, has gained an international reputation for its music and visual art programmes with alumni including the likes of Oscar and Turner prize winner Steve McQueen. Goldsmiths has also featured strong programmes in anthropology, sociology and education studies. In recent years, it has become a battleground between lecturers and senior management. 

This spring members of the University & Colleges Union (UCU) at Goldsmiths voted overwhelmingly in favour of industrial action – more than 91% in favour on a turnout of 63% in a postal ballot. The ballot came in response to a proposed restructure, the third in five years, which threatened around 270 jobs among both administrative and academic staff.

The latest restructure would supposedly cut the university’s costs by around £22 million, but according to the UCU, senior management has spent some £14 million on consultants and legal fees since 2019. 

In response to the UCU branch agreeing to implement a marking and assessment boycott (MAB), Goldsmiths management announced that it would move to deduct 100% of the pay from staff backing the boycott even though marking and assessment constitutes a small fraction of the overall workload. UCU members considered management’s position as a de facto lock-out and have declared an indefinite strike, which began on 8th June. 

The Goldsmiths dispute has specific dimensions, but it is also an illustration of the wider funding crisis affecting virtually all of the UK higher education sector, which has witnessed large-scale job loss, course and campus closures and mergers in recent years with nearly 25 institutions facing potential bankruptcy in the next 12 months. 

In short, the current funding model for the university sector, based for the past two decades on revenue from tuition fees and the recruitment of overseas students, is broken. 

Meanwhile, Goldsmiths lecturers remain on strike/locked out and to date management has refused to make any real concessions in ACAS talks. After more than three months, financial hardship has become a serious challenge for many UCU members. The union branch is asking supporters to:  

George Binette is the former Trade Union Liaison Officer for Hackney North & Stoke Newington CLP and co-chair of Camden Trades Council.

Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Goldsmiths_College_Entrance.jpg Source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/katjung/421251769/. Author: katjung, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.