Thursday we meet Union District Official to go through issues as management refuse to give any assurances about compulsory redundancies and workload.

 We were aware that there were funding cuts from the LSC in the region of £1 million although in our last meeting this figure had been reduced somehat.

Chris outlined a few points we should look at in a proposed redundancy situation and wew discussed the timeline for fulfilling statutory ballt requirements.

Friday
2.15 pm

 UCU officers meet Michael Farley, Maria Mina and Colin Henderson. Michael outlines document entitled Securing the Future. Points to timeline- 30 days. He states he didn't envisage any of this when he arrived at the college.

 After adjourning to take stock UCU asks whether legal requirement to do Impact Assessments have happened-no response. Asks for more detail around college finances especially management accounts from August 2008 onwards and states opposition to document.

4pm. Everyone is in a state of shock. Although the management met with UCU as agreed. It was an ambush. The blow is far worse than anything we could have foreseen or they had forewarned. They are proposing 40.6 FTE redundancies, to be announced in just 30 days from now.

By far the hardest-hit area is the [Skills For Life / ESOL] department. This means the hundreds of people on waiting lists for English classes will not get a place with us next year or indeed any time in the foreseeable future. 1,595 student learner places to be cut in ESOL alone....more than half of our provision.

Sickeningly, within this group, the hardest hit will be the most vulnerable - the community education students who are unable to travel to classes on main college sites. Many of these people are known to be among the most socially and financially excluded not just in the borough, but in the entire country.

This is not just a forced response to funding cuts. This suggests an ideologically-motivated cultural makeover. If this goes through as proposed, it will end forever the role of Tower Hamlets College as the beating heart of the second-language communities in the borough. This amounts to a calculated abandonment of the local people. It means the discarding of an expert infrastructure that has evolved over decades in response to the needs of the local community. It's not going too far to say that we will lose a national bank of expertise that cannot be replaced. This follows 2 rounds of voluntary redundancies year on year. We have already lost more knowledge and experience than we could spare. Staff at this college are so proud of working here, so passionate about this borough. During my time here, I have had so many conversations with colleagues in which we agreed that this is by far the most rewarding work we have ever done, that we find it hard to imagine ever wanting to work elsewhere. It's hard to believe, with the current principal, our fourth in six years [???], that the top management feel the same commitment.

As soon as the meeting with the union took place, management circulated an 18-page consultancy document detailing the plans, as they are legally required to do. There will now follow a statutory consultancy period of 30 days before they can formally identify individuals 'at risk' of compulsory redundancy.

The consultancy document, humorously titled 'Securing The Future', includes a sort of timetable of doom, giving all the dates throughout July when various grisly events will take place. Step 1, today, includes such items as 'the proposed method of selecting the employees to be dismissed'. I was under the impression that dismissal and compulsory redundancy were not the same thing, but the term 'dismiss' is used several times in the document.

The 6th of July is the end of the consultancy period, when the orgy of bloodletting is set to commence for real, after a month of foreplay. On this day, letters will go out advising staff that they are 'at risk' of compulsory redundancy. We will be invited to individual consultation meetings on the 8th and 9th of July. On 10th July, letters will be issued giving 'notice of dismissal'. This will no doubt lend a real air of jollity to the end of term parties scheduled for the 9th.

6pm A number of us convened in a pub. This isn't as routine at Tower Hamlets College as you might expect, as lots of people have kids or don't drink for a variety of reasons and we try to be inclusive in our socialising. We also have very limited opportunities to get together, especially those of us who work in community education, where you are isolated by being away from the main sites. Anyway, I've seldom felt so happy to walk into a pub and see a group of smiling faces yelling out a welcome. The horrible occasion immediately felt so much better and we let off steam all evening. It was so empowering to get together for a change and share our rants. We did some competitive scoring on our 'criteria for redundancy' according to the ghastly little table in the consultancy document, and boasted about our failings. Somebody quoted the minutes of an HR meeting which commented that some staff had 'excellent observation grades but are a nightmare to manage'. What a lovely turn of phrase. We pondered the ignominy of being at the other end of the scale - a rubbish teacher who is a delight to manage. Wonder which type they are most likely to sack? Don't answer that.

Saturday
I've got a well-deserved bad head, the sky is grey and it's raining. We agreed last night to devote time over the weekend to looking through the consultancy document with a fine-tooth comb and identifying issues we need to discuss. Somehow this doesn't sound quite as much fun today as it did last night. I didn't sleep too well. Suspect many colleagues didn't either. In a perverse way, I'm looking forward to Monday and seeing my colleagues after class so that we can try and keep momentum going and do something constructive. Mutual support is going to be crucial to our success in the coming weeks.