TRADE unionists from across Scotland joined comrades in Dundee today to rally against swingeing job cuts at the city’s largest university.

Unite the union, whose members at the University of Dundee overwhelmingly voted to back strike action less than a week ago, rallied outside the city’s Caird Hall, home this week to the STUC.

The action comes after a devastating few months at the institution, which began in November with the announcement that there was a financial black hole of over £30 million.

The entire senior management team then resigned, leaving huge uncertainty over the future of the university.

To the anger of workers, and their unions — UCU, Unison and Unite — the new management team announced plans to take an axe to 632 full-time equivalent posts, and with them, the livelihoods of more than 700.

Despite pledges of extra cash from the Scottish government, and widespread opposition from workers, students and politicians, the university have pressed ahead with the plan to cut 20 per cent of its workforce, retaining the threat of compulsory redundancies.

But to chants of “Six-three-two, shame on you,” speakers at Tuesday’s rally insisted the fight was far from over.

Tamara Richardson, a Unite rep at the university, told the rally: “This is not a failing university, this is a university failed by executive management.

“Any recovery plan with compulsory redundancies is no recovery plan at all.”

North East Scotland Labour MSP Mercedes Villalba said: “It isn’t just about 632 or more jobs. It’s about the future of this city and of higher education in this country.

“For too long, decisions that affect our industries and our institutions, our cities and our communities have been taken by people with no real skin in the game.

“Taken by people who do not live here, who don’t send their kids to our schools, and who don’t invest their six-figure salaries in our communities.

“It’s the people who work and study at the university that make it the world-class institution we are so proud of.

“So it must be us who have the greatest say. Us, in the workplace. Us, on the picket line. Us, taking to the streets, and that’s where I will be —standing shoulder to shoulder with you.”