GOLDSMITHS staff celebrated a partial victory today after an agreement with the university ended a long-running dispute over brutal job cuts.  

Under the deal, no staff at Goldsmiths, University of London, will face compulsory redundancy in the next academic year, the  University and College Union (UCU) has confirmed.

The management has also guaranteed that the 14 remaining staff at risk will keep their jobs. 

In return, UCU will call off its marking and assessment boycott, halt a global academic boycott of the university and scrap plans to begin indefinite strike action next month. 

The union campaign aimed to halt all of the 130 compulsory redundancies, including of one in six academic staff, that management had originally threatened. 

However, Goldsmiths bosses did compel 62 members to accept a redundancy agreement and 17 members to move to “overflow” roles on worse conditions. 
 
UCU general secretary Jo Grady said: “Many dedicated staff have been pressured to leave Goldsmiths under management’s disastrous transformation programme and the full impact of their loss will only be understood in the coming academic year. 

“Nevertheless, by taking sustained industrial action, our members have not only protected many more jobs, as well as courses, they have also saved an institution that was in danger of burning down its own house. 

“This hard-won agreement is a testament to their strength.
 
“Vice-chancellors across the country must learn from this dispute and realise that wherever they try to make staff pay the price for financial mismanagement and a failed funding model, we will organise relentlessly to defend jobs and protect student provision.”

Goldsmiths said that “these are difficult times for universities” and that it would continue working with unions “for the good of our students and staff.”