University staff set to walk out on strike
NICOLA FINDLAY
Students in East Kilbride face disruption thanks to 14 days of strikes by teaching staff.
A total of 15 universities across Scotland – including the University of the West of Scotland (UWS) – are set to be affected.
The University College Union (UCU) and the Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS) University Lecturers Association (EIS-ULA) called the strikes in disputes over pay and conditions.
The UCU disputes – on pay, working conditions and pensions – are UK-wide and will take place across 14 days.
The EIS-ULA dispute is over pay only and will happen across five days. It will be the second wave of strikes after an eight-day demonstration just before Christmas.
UCU Scotland official Mary Senior said:“This unprecedented level of action shows just how angry staff are at their universities’ refusal to negotiate properly with us.”
Meanwhile, the EIS said its strike was over lecturers’pay which it said had been“cut, in real terms, by at least 20 per cent over the past decade”.
Its demonstrations will spread out across five days until March 13.
Larry Flanagan, general secretary of the EIS said lecturers in Scotland were“poorly served” by UK management negotiations.
“Our members have been forced into this action because university management refuse to negotiate a fair and reasonable offer for lecturers,”he said.
“University lecturers have endured a decade of declining pay and soaring workload, and have been offered a meagre, 1.8 per cent pay settlement this year – well below the recent settlements in the school and college sectors, here in Scotland, and, indeed, below the average public-sector settlements over the past year.”
About 600 union members from five colleges are involved in the EIS-ULA walkouts.
In response to the action, a spokesman for Universities and Colleges Employers Association (UCEA), the body representing the universities said:“Universities are deeply disappointed to see UCU trying to press ahead with their HE committee’s plans for extensive strike action.
“UCEA has offered UCU further informal talks and urges the union’s leaders to reconsider pursuing damaging strike action at less than half of universities, damaging students, staff and their own members – who are yet to be consulted over the new positive proposals that are on the table.
“These proposals address the important issues around employment in universities, focusing on casual employment, workload/mental health and gender pay gaps/ethnicity pay.”
The EIS previously said such proposals were offered for these issues but there had been no scope for negotiating pay.