University staff to stage ‘biggest ever’ strikes this month as 70,000 walk out
Author/Source: Andy Gregory - Independent UK | 12/01/2023
More than 70,000 lecturers and other staff at 150 universities will strike for three days this month, a union has announced, warning that the mass action is just the beginning.
The University and College Union (UCU) said the strikes – on November 24, 25 and 30 – will be the biggest ever to hit UK universities and could impact more than two million students.
Despite the historic scale of the strikes, the union warned that industrial action will intensify in the months to come unless the long-running dispute over pay, working conditions and pensions is resolved.
The threat of escalated action in the new year will come alongside a marking and assessment boycott if the dispute is not resolved, the union said.
Union members will also begin industrial action short of strike action from 23 November, which includes refusing to take on any additional duties, refusing to make up work lost as a result of strike action and refusing to cover for absent colleagues.
Campuses across the UK are about to experience strike action on a
scale never seen before, said UCU general secretary Jo Grady said,
adding: This is not a dispute about affordability – it is about
choices.
Vice-chancellors are choosing to pay themselves hundreds of thousands of pounds whilst forcing our members onto low-paid and insecure contracts that leave some using food banks. They choose to hold billions in surpluses whilst slashing staff pensions.
UCU members do not want to strike but are doing so to save the sector and win dignity at work. This dispute has the mass support of students because they know their learning conditions are our members’ working conditions.
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