Trinity College, Cambridge plans to make 45 housekeeping staff redundant according to documents seen by Varsity. If the College follows through with these plans, it seems that 50% of the housekeeping department at Oxbridge’s wealthiest college would be made redundant.

It is understood that the College informed their workers about the redundancies on Friday 11th September, suggesting workers initially take voluntary redundancies. However, the documents seen by the Varsity detail how voluntary redundancies will be followed by compulsory job cuts.

Trinity justified the redundancies on the basis that a reduced cleaning service is required due to the Covid-19 pandemic and predictions that these measures will likely last at least until the summer of 2022.

Trinity College is the richest Oxbridge college, with a total endowment of £1,286,289,000, over double the size of St John’s College - the second richest Cambridge College. Trinity’s assets per student are approximately £1,453,776.

Trinity has 26 members of staff who earn over £60k including three members of staff earning over £100,000. The College on its own is wealthier than every UK university other than Manchester, Edinburgh and Imperial College London.

In response, Cambridge University Justice 4 Workers Campaign has stated that “We are horrified to hear this news. It is shameful that a College with such extortionate wealth is sacking its lowest paid workers in the middle of a global pandemic ”

They added “Instead of sacking the staff who clean the rooms, for its student and fellows, Trinity should use its £1.2bn of assets to avoid sacking half of its housekeeping staff”.

The redundancies follow Trinity facing national scrutiny surrounding its ‘extremely punitive’ Community Statement. The Statement, drawn up by the College, threatened students with “repossession” of their rooms if they did not follow the College’s Covid-19 guidance.

These latest revelations also comes a week after Varsity saw leaked documents detailing Queens’ plans to make 32 members of non-academic staff redundant. This was widely criticised by the Queens’ Solidarity Campaign, the Cambridge Justice 4 Workers Campaign and the Students’ Union.

Following this, Downing also confirmed 27 non-academic staff have been made redundant and a further 56 have had their hours reduced. Downing is the 12th richest Cambridge college, with an endowment of £49.8 million while eleven members of its staff earn over £60,000.

At the time, UNITE stated, “Once again, a wealthy Cambridge college has shown no mercy in their brutal treatment of the hard working and faithful staff that are the backbone of the institution”.

Trinity College has been contacted for comment.