University of Bristol staff to be balloted for potential strike action

By James Cleaver, Online News Editor

The ballot comes amid a dispute about staff pay, the gender pay gap, excessive workloads and insecure contracts

Starting from today, 70,000 University and College Union (UCU) staff in higher education will be balloted on whether they support a marking boycott or potentially strike action in response to a pay offer from the Universities and Colleges Employers’ Association (UCEA).

UCU argue that the proposal fails to improve on the 2% increase offered at talks last May, pointing to a 21% in higher education pay since 2009. The union is also seeking greater assurances about closing the gender pay gap by 2020, reducing excessive workloads and reducing the number of insecure contracts.

The offer made by UCEA in May 2018 was rejected by 82% of respondents in June, but an initial disaggregated ballot on strike action following that failed to reach the 50% turnout necessary to legitimise the ballot action. 72 per cent of staff respondents at the University of Bristol voted that they were prepared to take strike action, on a 46 per cent turnout.

UCU Head of Policy, Matt Waddup, claimed that universities had ignored the concerns of staff and had ‘failed to engage with us in these negotiations which has undermined the credibility of national bargaining and left us in a situation where we have no alternative but to ballot our members.’

'We have no alternative but to ballot our members.'

In February and March last year university staff across the country took part in strike action to protest against proposed changes to their pensions by Universities UK (UUK) through the Universities Superannuation Scheme by Universities UK.

The ballot, which encompasses staff at 143 universities, closes on 22 February.

Featured image: Epigram / Evy Tang

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