Keighley College lecturers could take strike action before Easter against compulsory redundancies announced last year.

Members of the National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education (NATFHE), which represents 90 per cent of lecturers at the college, are balloting for strike action to stop the redundancies. The ballot opened on Monday and closes next Wednesday. Seven teaching jobs are at risk in the cost-cutting exercise.

NATFHE branch secretary Martin Toch says: "NATFHE members have decided enough is enough and now is the time to protest and to seek to change management's attitude through industrial action.

"We have been attempting to talk with management about how management and the union together could find ways of reducing the redundancies, if not to eliminate them. But all they will talk to us about is how to select staff for the chop."

The combination of the time taken to introduce the cuts is one of the reasons behind the threat. NATFHE members are also outraged at the appointment of a director of human resources, which they believe is unnecessary.

Mr Toch says: "To keep people hanging on since last July to find out whether or not they will have a job while appointing another director seems like cruelty of a special kind."

Keighley College principal Doug Hardaker was unavailable for comment yesterday.

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