Campaign against closure of health and safety unit

Campaigners are calling on trade unionists to express their opposition to Blackburn College’s plans to close its long-established TUC trade union education and health and safety unit. The Blackburn centre was the first to open in the country and has existed since the 1970s. It has trained around 15,000 union members and reps and continues to provide a wide range of TUC courses.

The planned closure comes at a time when the knowledge and expertise of trained safety reps has never been so crucial.

Twenty-nine members of staff at the college are at risk of redundancy in the seventh round of redundancies in the last six years.

The UCU college lecturers’ union has set up a petition against the job cuts, at https://speakout.web.ucu.org.uk/stop-job-cuts-at-blackburn-college.

Blackburn and District TUC is also asking supporters to send letters of objection to the closure (see http://www.bdtuc.co.uk/news.htm).