Tomorrow (7 October) striking Oxford University Press (OUP) finance operations staff will continue their fight against offshoring plans with a rally outside OUP's headquarters.

When: Wednesday 7 October, 12:30 to 13:30

Where: Outside Oxford University Press headquarters, corner of Walton Street and Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP

As well as protesting outside OUP, 30 Unite members at the company are currently on strike until Friday (9 October) over plans to move their roles to India. They have been seeking a resolution since the announcement was made in June.

The workers were given a deadline to sign the settlement agreement a day before the first planned industrial action or be transferred to new employer EXL and lose the standard redundancy terms, which has been described as 'intimidating', and they have also been asked to stay on for six months to train their replacements.

Meanwhile, despite publicly maintaining they are “consulting with staff to reach a resolution”, OUP has not approached Unite to discuss it since mid-August. Instead, Unite members have been met with threats of disciplinary action and dismissal for exercising their legal right to take industrial action.

Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said: "Unite will not allow our members to be threatened and intimidated for taking strike action and we will always fight any plans to offshore British jobs.

"OUP must change tack and enter into meaningful negotiations. This is disgraceful behaviour from a well-known employer and our members deserve better - they will always have our full backing."

Last month, an impartial arbitrator in the USA found that OUP had violated its contract with the union News Media Guild when they made another controversial offshoring decision to make 13 workers redundant in 2024.

Meanwhile, OUP also made 113 proposed redundancies in its Education and English Language Teaching divisions, as well as 76 redundancies at Karger, a recently acquired Swiss publisher.

OUP is the publishing house of the University of Oxford and is the largest university press in the world. According to its most recent annual report, OUP made profits of £47.1m 2025/26 and has £329.5m in the bank while its CEO Nigel Portwood was paid $1,486,174 in 2024/25.

Workers have been taking industrial action since 28 September and also walked out from 1 to 11 September.

Unite regional officer Naomi Gravett said: "Once again, the OUP is choosing to put profits over people. The way it has behaved throughout this dispute is very sub-standard.

"There is no financial rationale for this decision to offshore its hardworking staff and it must reconsider or face further action. Our members are determined to stick together to fight for their jobs."

ENDS

Notes to editors

For media enquiries ONLY please contact Unite press officer Natasha Wynarczyk on 07970081524

natasha.wynarczyk@unitetheunion.org