Teachers, mail and uni staff set to walk out

ROYAL Mail workers, university lecturers and teachers will go on strike today as industrial unrest continues to spread across the country in disputes over pay, jobs and conditions.

Picket lines will be mounted outside postal delivery and sorting offices, universities and schools as unions edge closer to coordinated industrial action.

It will be one of the biggest walkouts of the year.

Talks have been held between leaders of unions involved in the disputes with the aim of taking joint action, such as holding strikes on the same day.

Around 70,000 members of the University and College Union ( UCU) will strike today and tomorrow, and again on November 30, in a dispute over pay, pensions and contracts.

It will be the biggest strike of its kind, affecting an estimated 2.5 million students, with the union warning of escalated action in the new year if the row is not resolved.

The union says lecturers and other academic staff have suffered a decade of below inflation pay rises, with a 3% increase announced in the summer.

Members of the Communication Workers Union ( CWU) at the Royal Mail will also strike today and on Black Friday, one of the busiest days of the year for delivery companies.

A series of strikes is also planned in December, including Christmas

Eve, in one of the longest- running disputes of a year dominated by stoppages.

Royal Mail says it has made its “best and final offer” aimed at resolving the dispute, including “extensive improvements” made during negotiations with the CWU, such as an enhanced pay deal of up to 9% over 18 months, offering to develop a new profit share scheme for employees, and making voluntary redundancy terms more generous.

CWU general secretary Dave Ward said: “These proposals spell the end of Royal Mail as we know it and its degradation from a national institution into an unreliable, Uberstyle gig economy company.

“Make no mistake about it, British postal workers are facing an Armageddon moment.

“We urge every member of the public to stand with their postie, and back them like never before.”

Members of the Educational Institute of Scotland ( EIS) will walk out in the first national strike over pay for almost 40 years, with the action by teachers expected to close the majority of schools across Scotland.

A last- ditch offer made on Tuesday in a bid to avert strike action would see the lowest paid staff receive a 6.85% increase, with most getting 5%.

That was rejected by the EIS, and its general secretary Andrea Bradley branded it an “inept rehash” of the offer made earlier this year.