THE UCU dismissed bosses’ claims today that “most classes will go ahead” during the union’s latest strike at Dundee University as “wishful thinking.”

University principal Professor Nigel Seaton made the claim as workers began a five-week walkout to demand threats of compulsory redundancy at the crisis-struck institution be ditched.

Speaking on BBC Radio Scotland, he said that “I’m pretty confident that most classes will go ahead,” before going on to claim the 800 jobs cut over the last two years merely “reflects how very substantially over-staffed we were.”

UCU Dundee branch chair Dr Melissa D’Ascenzio told the same programme: “This statement is more wishful thinking than an actual reflection of reality.

“Our members are more determined than ever to fight against compulsory redundancies.

“You have to understand that some of our members are still in redundancy pools and they are really worried about their future, their career, their livelihoods.

“Some members that are not in a redundancy pool at this moment are really worried about increasing workload and about the future academic provision of the university.”

Supporting the strikers, newly elected Scottish Labour leader Michael Marra said: “I worked in that university for 14 years, and the extraordinary number of jobs that we lost is one of the — probably the biggest — industrial impacts that this city has had in more than a generation.

“It’s been a grotesque betrayal of the workers, but also of the city.”

Scotland First Minister John Swinney commented: “The government has expressed and offered and given support to the university to help it through its difficult times and, if the university and its unions can come together, it can help the university to thrive, which is what all of us want to see.”