Edinburgh College Lecturers and Students to Lobby Board over Redundancies

Students and lecturers at Edinburgh College will, at Granton Campus, lobby the Board of Management in a last-ditch attempt to avoid an intensification of the dispute over planned compulsory redundancies.

Despite meeting 98 percent of their target savings and almost all their planned cuts in the curriculum, College management is pressing ahead with selecting lecturers for compulsory redundancy in defiance of Scottish Government's 'no compulsory redundancy' policy.

A spokesperson for the EIS branch at the college said, "The EIS union branch has proposed simple, low-cost solutions to cover the small remaining shortfall. Yet these have been ignored, and grievance procedures have been breached by senior management.

"Compulsory redundancies are clearly unnecessary, now that the college's financial goals have been all but met. A survey on bullying conducted by the union also reveals serious concerns about workplace culture."

In the face of the intransigence on forced redundancies, a consultative ballot of lecturers, arranged by the EIS, returned an 87% vote in favour of striking. The EIS has now authorised a statutory ballot on strike action for lecturers at Edinburgh College, who will have access to financial support from the Union to mitigate the financial hardship caused by loss of pay.