The first three days of December will see strike action from staff at 58 UK universities, affecting the education of students across the country.
University College Union (UCU) members have voted in favour of striking from Wednesday 1st December to Friday 3rd December.
Students may miss out on teaching across these three days if their lecturers are members of the UCU and have successfully voted to strike.
This follows disruption to student life in recent years due to the COVID-19 pandemic and previous industrial action from staff.
However, despite students largely receiving no compensation or fee reduction for missed education thus far, the National Union of Students (NUS) are supporting staff who are striking. Their National President, Larissa Kennedy, insists that ‘staff teaching conditions are student learning conditions […] the onus for minimising disruption for students lies with university bosses.’
To avoid strikes happening before Christmas, the UCU wrote to Universities UK and the Universities and Colleges Employers Association, asking for:
- A 35% cut to guaranteed pensions to be revoked.
- A £2,500 pay increase for all staff.
- Efforts to tackle the race, gender and disability pay gaps.
- A new framework to eliminate zero-hours and casualised contracts.
- Action to tackle unreasonably high workloads.
This follows evidence that ‘pay for university staff fell by 17.6%’, with the pay gaps regarding gender, race and disability sitting at 16%, 17% and 9% respectively. At the same time, Vice Chancellors on average are earning salaries of around ten times their entry-level academic staff.
Not only this, but figures from the Higher Education Statistic Agency demonstrate a lack of diversity, as ‘of 22,810 professors in the UK, under a third (27%) were women and only 155 (1%) were Black.’
Due to the demands for change not being met, UCU member staff at universities across the country held a vote to determine whether they would strike under two issues of ‘pensions’ and ‘pay and working conditions.’
Overall, of the 53% turnout for the pension ballot, 76% of members voted in favour of strikes. 70.1% of the 51% turnout for the pay and working conditions ballot voted for strikes.
This means that UCU branches corresponding to different universities can exercise six months of industrial action before the ballot must be cast again. Therefore, more strike action may be taken by staff in the coming months if university employers fail to negotiate.
For any UCU branches that did not meet the 50%-member turnout threshold needed for each ballot to count – outlined by Conservative government anti-trade union laws – there will be the opportunity to re-organise the ballot to join in any further nationwide action.
64 institutions also voted in favour of ‘action short of strike over pay’ beginning on Wednesday 1st December. This means that staff will carry out duties outlined by their contract alone, refusing additional work such as working out of hours or taking on additional duties. This is planned to continue for the duration of the entire five-month period that staff have a mandate for industrial action, affecting students less than the initial strikes.
Unfortunately, if improved offers are not made by employers, the union is prepared to escalate disputes further into the academic year, resulting in more student disruption.