Marking boycott looms at Goldsmiths over £20m of cuts to staff

In a ballot that closed on Friday 10 April, 92% of UCU members who voted backed taking industrial action, including a potential marking and assessment boycott, on a turnout of 63%. 

Following the ballot result, at a branch meeting this week, UCU members voted to launch a marking and assessment boycott as soon as legally possible, meaning it could potentially begin later this month. The boycott would see staff stop all summative marking and associated assessment activities and would effectively block students from progressing and graduating until the dispute is settled.   

The dispute is over plans by the university to make £22m worth of cuts by the end of the next academic year (2026/27). £20m of the cuts would come from staffing, including mass compulsory redundancies. According to its latest accounts, the university spends around £83m on staffing, so the cuts represent almost 25% of its staffing costs, and if split proportionately across the workforce would mean around a quarter of the 1,230 staff facing the axe.   

The university claims it needs to make the cuts because of falls in recruitment, national insurance increases and government cuts to the Office for Students strategic priorities grant.   

Yet a recent FOI  has revealed approximately £16 million spent on consultancy firms, lawyers and solicitors over the last few years, in addition to eye-watering senior management pay rises. The Goldsmiths UCU branch are still waiting for management to comment on how this spend is justified as they pursue an endless cycle of savage job cuts.   

Goldsmiths has also recently announced it is opening a new campus, which will replace existing studio space provision where the current lease is expiring and cannot be renewed. 

UCU is demanding a moratorium on compulsory redundancies, a pause to the cuts process and, instead of cutting course provision, for management to work with staff to improve student recruitment.   

In its last dispute with management, Goldsmiths UCU beat back all compulsory redundancies after undertaking a marking boycott and threatening indefinite strike action, but £16.1m was still saved through forcing staff out via voluntary severance and enhanced redundancy agreements.   

UCU general secretary Jo Grady said: 'Our members backed this boycott because Goldsmith's management is insisting it will slash almost a quarter of university staff.

'Cuts of this scale would leave Goldsmith's a shell of its current self and would cause irreparable damage to current and future students as well as the local community.    

'Ahead of the local elections in May we are calling on Lewisham MPs, mayoral and council candidates to stand with staff, students and the local community and demand Goldsmiths changes course.'