The union has opposed the 150-plus planned redundancies at Cambridge Printing Services and Cambridge University Press' UK Education publishing business following the start of a 90-day consultation last month.
The plans are to be debated at the city's Guildhall and a motion to councillors outlines ‘the impact that these would have on the fabric of the community'.
Unite has cited the loss of a five-year £40m Cambridge Assessment contract, which was put out to tender last year and later won by equipment manufacturer Océ, as a reason behind the 'present crisis' at the press.
The deal included print facility management at the agency's warehousing facilities, a move at the time, Mark Lovell, group director at Cambridge Assessment, called "an important step towards delivering flexible, high-quality, modern services".
Unite said in a statement that that if the management had made a £300,000 investment at Duxford, near Cambridge, it would have met the ‘secure environment’ demand of Cambridge Assessment.
Ann Field, national officer at Unite, said: "These job cuts are a shabby reward for all the efforts and sacrifices that the workforce have made in recent years – and now threaten to end 425 years of continuous printing by the CUP in Cambridge."
She added that the union calls on the management to rescind the planned cuts, "before they become an irredeemable stain on the university’s 800th anniversary celebrations".
Peter Davison, corporate affairs director at Cambridge University Press, said: "The likely redundancies this year, predominantly in printing, are more than offset by the jobs that have been created in Cambridge over the last three years in the publishing part of our business."
He added: "Changes in technology within the print industry and shifts away from print for other types of communication are such that today there is no major publisher in the UK which is also a sizeable printer.
"Retaining a printing business at its current size would have led to annual losses for the next three years in excess of £2m."
Earlier this month, around 500 people marched in protest to voice their concern at the proposed job cuts in a rally organised by Unite.
A Facebook group set up to protest over the move has 720 members.
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