UP to 2,000 jobs at EMI – more than one in three of the workforce – are at risk under a radical restructuring of the music group drawn up by private-equity boss Guy Hands. Thousands of artists will also go from EMI’s 14,000-strong roster.

The departures are a key part of a plan, to be unveiled on Tuesday, to revive the firm, which is struggling against an industry-wide fall in CD sales.

Hands must also confront angry managers for some of the world’s biggest rock and pop acts, who have formed their own group, the Black Hand Gang, to protest against the changes.

The job cuts will be primarily in EMI’s recorded-music division, which employs 4,400 people. The talent team, A&R, which stands for artists and repertoire, will not be hit. Sources say the £130m that EMI Music spends on artist support every year is excessive for a division that makes profits of £60m.

The coordinated attack was the idea of Tim Clark, whose IE:music represents Robbie Williams. Clark described Hands as behaving like a “plantation owner” after the financier said stars were not working hard enough. In an e-mail to other managers of EMI artists on Friday, he urged them to “turn up in force” and “demand answers to hard questions” at the briefing.

Clark said Williams would not deliver another album for EMI “until he is convinced that the company can do a proper distribution and marketing job”. Cold-play, one of EMI’s top bands, is also reviewing its options.

Hands’s company, Terra Firma, bought EMI for £3.2 billion last summer.

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