Dundee Uni jobs slaughter – Sack the bosses not workers
Build a mass trade union and student campaign
The news that Dundee University bosses are to axe 632 jobs – around 20% of the workforce – is a scandal. It requires an immediate response in the shape of a mass campaign of trade union and student mobilisations, including joint union strike action, to defeat this act of corporate vandalism. One that will devastate not just the workforce but the quality of education across the university.
Socialist Party Scotland has been supporting the current UCU strike, which is in its third week, from the beginning. The fact that another campus trade union, UNISON, is also balloting for action means that joint union strikes are a real possibility.
The trade unions have a key role to play in also building mass political pressure on the Scottish government to step in and fund the £35 million deficit – in significant part due to the cuts imposed on higher education funding by the SNP-led administration at Holyrood. There is no way that the workers should pay the price of government underfunding, bosses mismanagement and an unsustainable funding model.
Unions should demand the opening of the books to democratic workers’ and student oversight. Let’s see where the money has gone.
Students also have a vital role to play in uniting with workers to stop this devastating attack. It will affect courses, support services and the undermine the quality of education for all students. A joint campaign committee involving students and reps from the trade unions needs to be established immediately.
There’s a widespread and deepening crisis in higher education funding. For students at unis such as Dundee, Aberdeen, Robert Gordon, Heriot Watt and the University of the West of Scotland (UWS) this means cutbacks to services, and the quality of their courses.
For staff in the HE sector across Scotland it means job losses and worsening terms and conditions at work. The crisis is being driven by a drop off in the numbers of international students studying in Scotland – and significant cuts by the Scottish government to core funding for universities.
As one Dundee Uni staff member explained: “The freeze on staff recruitment and the non-filling of vacancies will over-burden an already demoralised staff, and the threat of redundancy makes things even worse.
Previous top university management have left Dundee Uni but were replaced by another set who have now wielded the axe. Socialist Party Scotland demands the removal of top university management, and for the running of universities by democratically elected committees of staff, students and the local community in the interests of society as a whole, not to make profit for wealthy investors and pay vice chancellors’ bloated salaries.
The crisis in HE is added to by a Scottish FE funding row, with Colleges Scotland and the Scottish government arguing over who should finance the repair of crumbling RAAC concrete at 7 colleges across Scotland.
Colleges Scotland claim that the 24 colleges they represent are now dealing with 17% real terms funding cut since the 2021-22 Scottish Budget, which ultimately fails young people in further education. How are students anywhere in higher or further education supposed to focus on what they’re learning when their uni might be at risk of closure, or their college’s literal structural integrity is in doubt?
Similarly, the staff in this sector already toil under casualised conditions for substandard wages. Pushing more of the austerity burden onto them simply cannot be permitted by campus trade unions.
build a mass workers’ party
Of course, the lack of a political alternative makes it easier for Labour, the SNP and all the capitalist parties to pass the buck off to one another.
A new mass workers’ party could immediately change this by declaring common cause with student and campus staff and campaigning for a fully funded education system – without fees and cuts. Enormous profits are extracted from the products of publicly funded research, and this money should help open more spaces for working class students instead of lining the bosses’ pockets.
Equally, further education will prove invaluable in dealing with pressing problems such as the housing crisis or the need for a socialist transition to reduce carbon emissions.
Both of these problems require more vocational training in construction and engineering. Ultimately, while successive SNP governments in Holyrood have tried to mitigate the debt burden by not charging Scottish students for fees, this has not worked as student debt levels are increasing.
As the Starmer government at Westminster continues to promise more economic pain for the working class, tuition fees for Scottish students cannot be ruled out. Socialists have and will continue to argue that this would mean putting staff and students in charge of decision-making on campus, not profiteers or vice chancellors. And that means a break with capitalism. We fight for a socialist education system, not underfunded and crumbling unis and colleges.
- Build a mass campaign of trade union and student action to stop the job cuts
- No to cuts to courses, staff jobs and student services on campus
- Open the books to democratic trade union inspection For a workers’ and student mass campaign to fully fund higher and further education
- For free education – abolish all fees, scrap student debt and a living student grant for all
- Build a trade union based mass workers’ party
- Fight for socialist change
