University workers to stage fresh walkouts
UNIVERSITY workers are to stage 14 days of walkouts in ongoing disputes over pay and pensions.
Members of the University and College Union (UCU) will hold strikes between February 20 and March 13 in a fresh round of industrial action.
The walkouts will hit 74 universities across the UK, and UCU estimated that more than a million students will be affected.
UCU said it has been clear that it will take “serious and sustained industrial action” and is prepared to run fresh ballots for further strikes if the disputes are not resolved.
The strikes are over two separate disputes, one on pensions and the other on pay and conditions.
University employers in the pensions row said that they “regret” UCU’s decision to strike, while those representing institutions in the pay and conditions dispute said they were “dismayed”.
This is the second round of industrial action by UCU members in the ongoing bitter disputes. The first saw 60 universities hit by walkouts in November and December.
UCU general secretary Jo Grady said: “We have seen more members back strikes since the winter walkouts and this next wave of action will affect even more universities and students. If universities want to avoid further disruption they need to deal with rising pension costs, and address the problems over pay and conditions.”
A spokesman for UCEA, which represents employers in the pay dispute, said: “We are dismayed, and many higher education institutions will be so too, to see UCU’s HEC decide to ask the union’s members to once again use damaging strike action over last year’s national pay demands.”