University staff to stage ‘biggest ever’ strikes this month as 70,000 walk out

Walk-outs will be ‘on a scale never seen before’ and could impact 2.5 million students, union says

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.

“If university vice-chancellors don’t get serious, our message is simple – this bout of strike action will be just the beginning.”

The strikes come after the majority of UCU members voted in favour of industrial action last month in two national ballots – since which point university vice-chancellors have not made any improved offers, according to the union.

Employers imposed a 3 per cent pay rise earlier this year following more than a decade of below-inflation pay awards, the union said.

Meanwhile, the UK university sector generated record income of £41.1bn last year, with vice-chancellors collectively earning an estimated £45m, according to UCU analysis.

On pay and working conditions, the union is calling for a “meaningful” pay rise to deal with the cost of living crisis and action to end the use of “insecure” contracts – with a third of academic staff claimed to be on some form of temporary contract.

In the pension dispute, the UCU is demanding employers revoke a “package of cuts” made earlier this year which it claims will see the average union member lose 35 per cent of their guaranteed future retirement income.

“For those at the beginning of their careers, the losses are in the hundreds of thousands of pounds,” said the UCU.

Noting that “staff teaching conditions are students’ learning conditions”, the National Union of Students (NUS) said that students stood in solidarity with staff over what represents the fifth consecutive year of campus strikes in response to cuts to education and workers’ rights.

“The struggles we face as students are inextricably linked to the reasons that staff are striking,” said NUS vice-president for higher education, Chloe Field.

“High rents, astronomical international student fees, and cuts to maintenance support have happened for the same reasons that staff are suffering under huge workloads – the failed marketisation of the sector which has put profit above staff and student wellbeing.

“Universities and employers must come to the table and take meaningful action to end these disputes. They have a responsibility to their staff and students to end unacceptable pay disparities for racialised staff, disabled staff, and women, and to protect staff pensions to that they can have a decent retirement.”

The government’s minister for higher education Robert Halfon said it was “hugely disappointing that students who have already suffered during the pandemic face further disruption to their learning due to industrial action”.

“I urge all sides to work together so that students do not suffer with further learning loss, and I encourage any student worried about the impact of strikes on their education to raise this with their university,” he added.

Additional reporting by PA