‘WE ARE STRONG, united and determined to win,’ and ‘We are fighting for the survival of Brunel University,’ University and College Union (UCU) strikers declared defiantly on their picket line outside the West London university yesterday morning.
Joanna Babukutty, Brunel University UCU professional staff rep, told News Line: ‘There are 917 professional staff members in scope for redundancies.
‘492 have received letters informing us that we are all at risk of redundancy and the other 400 have been so-called “assimilated into other roles”.
‘We all got the letters this Monday. It’s on the same day they told us about the process.
‘We waited for months to hear what’s going to happen to us. Everyone’s so worried and finally they tell us.
‘Nearly 500 will have to fight for a much smaller pool of available positions. We won’t accept it and we are all sticking together.
‘We have six weeks of increasing strikes and we have almost six months of ASOS (action short of strike), plus we are in weekly negotiation meetings with management.
‘This is the second round of this job culling. The first round was last October, when 203 staff members exited through so-called “voluntary” schemes.
‘Then, if they were to get away with this, there would be a third round. But we are fighting and we are strong, united and determined to win.’
Local Hayes and Harlington MP John McDonnell came down to support the picket and said: ‘I’m putting an Early Day Motion down in Parliament on Monday calling for an end to job cuts at Brunel.’
Bianca de Haan, senior lecturer in cognitive neuroscience, said: ‘In a nutshell, we are striking to avoid compulsory redundancies.
‘More than a third of staff have been put at risk of redundancy here – close to one thousand of us.
‘The planned redundancies are 20-25% of the workforce. We are fighting for the survival of Brunel University.’
Derick Valen, technician with the Brunel University Medical School, said: ‘Getting rid of 25% of the workforce at the university actually means getting rid of almost 100% of the Medical School.
‘We need all-out strike action to sort this out. It’s the only way. It’s a life and death matter for us individually and for the university as a whole.
‘We are fighting to win.’
The next day of strike action is Wednesday 12th March.
