University of Brighton students against staff redundancies barricade themselves in office

The university announced plans to make 110 staff redundant in response to high levels of inflation

Author: Vanessa BellringerPublished 25th May 2023

University of Brighton students have barricaded themselves inside the vice-chancellor's office this afternoon, May 25, in protest at proposed job cuts.

They are demanding the university reverse plans to make 110 staff redundant as part of a restructuring of the workforce - claiming it threatens their education.

Alexi, a humanities student at the university, said: "The lecturers are one of the most important things about this university and we all have such solid connections with them.

"We're all taught in multidisciplinary classes, so we have a lot of lecturers over the semester and in humanities we're going to lose 40 per cent of those.

"We've just sent our dissertation forms off and we don't know if our supervisors are going to have jobs.

"It's really awful and it's been super stressful being in seminars where people aren't sure if they're gong to have a job, or have a career, or if this is the last seminar they're ever going to conduct, so we had to do something."

University officials say it is in response to high levels of inflation, and that they have done their best to protect jobs wherever possible.

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