Skip to main content
Your Account
Sign In
Support Us
Subscribe
Britain
World
Editorial
Features
Culture
Sport
Britain
World
Editorial
Features
Culture
Sport
Gaza
Climate Crisis
workers' rights
Austerity
far right
Labour
Latest editorial
'Welfare Not Warfare' is the answer to Reform UK
Advertise
Contact us
Shop
Subscribe
Support us
Daily Alert
Gaza
Climate Crisis
Workers' rights
Austerity
Far right
Labour
Britain
/
29 April 2025
Comrades rally for Dundee University workers
Photo: Calum Baird
Matt Kerr
Recent
STUC 2025
/
29 April 2025
'The backlash against bullies and billionaires has begun'
29 April 2025
Britain
/
29 April 2025
Palestine campaigners slam Israeli interference
29 April 2025
Britain
/
29 April 2025
Reform surge threatens Tories and Labour
29 April 2025
Britain
/
29 April 2025
NHS outsourcing fuels inequality and longer waits, study shows
29 April 2025
STUC 2025
/
29 April 2025
Sarwar tries to sell Starmer government virtues to Scottish TUC
29 April 2025
Britain
/
29 April 2025
Health unions in Wales unite to end corridor care in hospitals
29 April 2025
Scotland
/
29 April 2025
Landmark victory secures Glasgow's trade union education centre
29 April 2025
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.”
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
Become a subscriber
Already a subscriber?
Sign in here
More from this author
Britain
/
18 April 2025
University closures would be a ‘tragedy’, warns Edinburgh axeman
18 April 2025
Britain
/
17 April 2025
NHS must adapt to Supreme Court ruling on sex and gender, says equalities watchdog
17 April 2025
Britain
/
16 April 2025
Supreme court: ‘Woman’ in equality law refers to biological women
16 April 2025
Britain
/
16 April 2025
£19,000 pay hike ‘not a rise,’ insists SNP minister
16 April 2025
Similar stories
STUC 2025
/
29 April 2025
Arms industry dialogue secured
29 April 2025
STUC 2025
/
29 April 2025
'The backlash against bullies and billionaires has begun'
29 April 2025
Scotland
/
29 April 2025
Landmark victory secures Glasgow's trade union education centre
29 April 2025
STUC 2025
/
28 April 2025
Swinney's calls for intervention on Grangemouth ‘too little too late’
28 April 2025