TEACHERS at an Enfield college could strike after their union began to ballot them in a dispute over job cuts.

Staff and students at the College of Haringey, Enfield and North East London demonstrated outside the college's Tottenham campus in High Road yesterday to protest against cuts to jobs and courses.

One hundred and sixty staff received redundancy notices in March, including 70 teachers who work for the college on a part-time basis. There are more than 1,000 staff in total at the college's three campuses.

And funding to the college's English for Speakers of Other Languages courses has been slashed as part of government cutbacks.

In a joint letter to members, branch secretaries of the University and College Union said: “Other further education colleges across London are subject to the same national funding cuts, but none are proposing redundancies on anything like the same scale at the College of Haringey, Enfield and North East London.

“The college with the second highest number - Ealing, Hammersmith and West London - is proposing 23 redundancies.

“The college has the funds to protect jobs, and unless management demonstrate that they value staff above corporate profit, our college risks sliding into a spiral of decline.”

Lecturers want the college to prevent compulsory redundancies by cutting management pay and the use of consultants, as well as dipping into the budgetary reserves to lessen the impact of cuts.

The Enfield Independent understands that if the management refuse the union's demands, strike action will begin on June 30.

The move follows the first national strike action by the union in two years over pay and pensions in March.

The college was unavailable for comment despite repeated attempts by the Enfield Independent, but in a statement given to the newspaper in March, it said: “The Government's comprehensive spending review has had a pronounced impact on all parts of the public sector, including further education which means the whole sector will make significant savings.

“The college is doing everything it can to ensure that the savings made still ensure the needs of our learners can be met whenever possible.

“However the college is not in a position to provide education and training courses which the government no longer pays for.

“The number of teaching hours for many courses has been reduced by the Government’s funding agency, and consequently fewer teaching staff will be required to teach on our courses.

“The College will work closely with our staff to offer voluntary redundancy so that we can avoid compulsory redundancies.”