ACADEMICS from a leading Scottish university are to take strike action in a row over job losses.
Members of the University and College Union (UCU) at Dundee University have organised two separate days of industrial action as well as refusing to participate in the university's redundancy process, which they say is flawed.
As part of their action, union members will also ignore "excellence review" forms sent out by the university, which they say are a mechanism to make them compete with one another to keep their own jobs.
Ian Ellis, Dundee UCU president, said: "Strike action is always the last resort. We have tried talking to the university senior managers, but their refusal to engage constructively has left us with no other option.
"Taking strike action affects the students here in Dundee, but we know that their education and those of students in the future will be hit hard if the university is downsized in this way.
"The truth is that you can't lose 120 academic staff without students ending up in bigger classes and harming Dundee's academic reputation."
However, a spokesman for Dundee University said the institution was "disappointed" by the move saying it would "do nothing" to resolve "pressing issues" faced by the university.
He said: "Like many across the higher education sector, the university faces a difficult financial situation at the present time.
"Only last month we received notice that our research funding from the Scottish Funding Council was being reduced by over £1 million.
"In addition, our costs in relation to our income are currently higher than other comparable institutions across the sector. The university therefore set a deficit budget of £2.7 million for the year 2014/15, which represents around one per cent of turnover."
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