UNISON Goldsmiths has secured a great victory, with the College agreeing to a a no-compulsory redundancy guarantee for future restructures.
UNISON Goldsmiths branch lodged a Failure to Agree letter with College in September 2021, following the consultation on a large number of redundancies across professional services and academic departments. This was first of four planned tranches of the recovery programme (all of which would involve cuts in staffing).
Despite a series of dispute resolution meetings, the branch was unable to reach an acceptable agreement. Affected branch members were balloted and voted for industrial action – with three days of consecutive strike action taking place on 2, 3, and 4 March 2022, with a series of talks at ACAS following in an attempt to resolve the dispute.
Following further talks at ACAS in June 2022, management met with UNISON and UCU to discuss resolutions to the dispute and avoiding further industrial action. As part of the deal agreed by both UNISON and UCU, members who had previously departed the College via the staffing cuts programme would additional enhanced severance payments, and there was a no compulsory redundancy guarantee from Goldsmiths for the remaining tranches of the recovery programme.