students are being invited to join striking workers in a mass picket at Hackney Community College in east London today, to stop 25 lecturers being forced to take redundancy and leave their jobs.
There is real anger amongst the staff and students, who are determined not to let a single lecturer be sacked.
Lecturers in the UCU and staff in UNISON will be joining the picket line from 8.00am this morning and will continue all the way through the day.
The LSC (Learning Skills Council) have drawn back funding from Hackney Community College as a penalty for not reaching their student recruitment targets for 15 to 19-year-olds for this academic year.
As a result, the management are trying to get rid of 25 lecturers to compensate for the funding cuts.
William Brownings, vice-chair of the UCU Hackney Community College branch, said, speaking in a personal capacity: ‘The strike is in response to 25 compulsory redundancies.
‘There is a shift in funding to 15 to 19 year olds.
‘It is absolutely right that there is priority of funding for 15 to 19 year olds.
‘But at the same time, it should not be at the expense of adult training and education.
‘Originally, there were eight FE colleges in the London region who voted in an aggregate ballot against compulsory redundancies.
‘These redundancies were as the result of cuts in funding in FE colleges.
‘Regrettably, Hackney Community College stands alone in taking strike action.
‘However, this is because the other colleges were able to finally guarantee that there will be no compulsory redundancies.
‘It is a victory for them and a victory we are also determined to win at this college.
‘This is no way to treat teaching staff and we won’t accept anything less than a guarantee from senior management that all of our jobs are safe.
‘It is market madness that an education system should be funded on these arbitrary targets.
‘We have won concessions through the fight to save ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages).
‘We had a very successful demonstration in East London and lobby of the House of Commons.
‘But the fight there continues also.
‘Our aim is to get a full commitment from the government that ESOL remains free on demand for all those who want to learn English.
‘The ongoing success of the ESOL campaign has buoyed up the membership to fight around the redundancy issue and we are determined to win.’
There will be a static protest outside 10 Downing St on Friday June 29 at 1.00pm to save ESOL and adult education.
