WORKERS at City of Glasgow College have relaunched their strike action in the long-running dispute against job and course cuts.

More than six months after college principal Paul Little announced more than 100 redundancies in an effort to make £6 million of cuts at the institution, workers have vowed to fight on.

A ballot held by further education union EIS-Fela last month delivered an overwhelming mandate to continue the dispute, with 81 per cent of the lecturers and support workers backing further action, which will mean strikes four days a week for the next five weeks.

Dozens of workers at the college rallied today in a powerful and noisy display of collectivity.

They heard messages of solidarity from Unison members in dispute in Scotland’s university sector and from councillors backing the campaign to halt the cuts.

As the disputed interview process for compulsory redundancies continues, workers spoke of a climate of fear at the college, with some telling the Star that they were told that those taking strike action faced losing their jobs.

Speakers challenged the £215,000-a-year college principal to go, while the Scottish government’s Further Education Minister Graham Dey was also heavily criticised, with one speaker branding him “the invisible man.”

Ahead of a meeting with the minister, due to take place tomorrow, EIS general secretary Andrea Bradley told striking members that the union would continue to back them, including with full strike pay, such was the importance the union placed on the dispute.

Ms Bradley accused Mr Dey of being “absolutely missing in action.”

She said: “Just a few weeks ago [First Minister] Humza Yousaf gave the Jimmy Reid memorial lecture and he gave an eloquent lecture all about progressive politics and fair work and role of trade unions.

“We asked what he was going to do to intervene in this dispute. He said in front of a hundred or so people: ‘I’ll see what more I can do.’

“I will be asking him what he has done to follow up on that because it is not acceptable that the First Minister of a Scottish government that has pledged its commitment to education has sat on its hands this long, doing virtually nothing. It’s absolutely unforgivable.”

The Scottish government was contacted for comment.