I teach at Goldsmiths, University of London, where University and College Union (UCU) members have now taken six weeks of strike action. We have done so in opposition to a recovery plan that could involve up to 46 redundancies – including academic staff and professional services staff – and the hollowing out of departmentally based administration.
Part of the action has coincided with national walkouts at dozens of universities in protest against massive pension cuts, entrenched casualisation, deteriorating working conditions and falling pay.
What’s happening at Goldsmiths isn’t without precedent. It is, however, both a dramatic illustration and the logical consequence of a series of developments around marketisation and financialisation in the higher education sector, which has been going on for more than a decade.
