A lecturers' strike on May 1 which would embarrass Labour two days before the possible general election polling day is looking more likely this week.
Natfhe, the lecturers' union, has sent every college principal a demand for a flat-rate £3,000 pay rise for 2001-2002 backed by a threat to take industrial action starting on May 1.
The Association of Colleges' chief executive, David Gibson, warned Natfhe to back off. He accused the union of busting the joint union-employers approach to bargaining with ministers which has operated for the past year and established a 3.3% pay increase for the current year.
And he said that Natfhe's action will put at risk the £150m for the Teachers Pay Initiative.
Malcolm Wicks, the lifelong learning minister, was due to announce how the first £50m of this was to be distributed among colleges.
Ministers, anxious to settle the colleges' pay dispute before launching an election campaign, hoped that the package, details of which were revealed by Guardian Further two weeks ago, would do the trick.
It is not just the possibility of strike pickets on the eve of polling day which makes the politicians nervous. College lecturers do not expect to excite much public sympathy. There is potentially more embarrassment in the inevitable invocation of Conservative union legislation to try to prevent industrial action.
Natfhe's £3,000 demand, described as an "interim" claim on behalf of managers as well as lecturers, was decided at the union's conference on January 20.
It was crafted as the first step in a staged award to come into effect over the next four years to restore further education lecturers' pay-relativity with salaries in schools. Lecturers' pay has fallen about 10% behind that of teachers.
Gibson has sent every principal a draft reply which he advises each sends to Natfhe's general secretary Paul Mackney.
The letter advises the union boss that the principal in question won't negotiate with him, but will wait for the "established collective bargaining machinery" to proceed.
Natfhe relayed its claim to the Association of Colleges at the end of January.
On February 27, David Gibson responded that the AoC took staff pay "extremely seriously" but that their interim claim ought to be "routed through the national joint forum", ie the combined unions-AoC negotiating body.
Denying AoC claims that he was being forced into escalating a dispute by a left-wing group on his executive committee, Mackney said it was simply a question of lecturers finally losing patience. This was only reinforced by the realisation that the £50m, although welcome, was just 2% of the lecturers' pay bill, while a similar scheme has yielded 8% for school teachers.
"Members at the conference told me that the talks with the AoC had generated some useful agreements but in the end hadn't dealt with the two main issues - pay and excessive work loads."
Natfhe was putting in its claim early this year to avoid previous experiences of running on to the end of the college year and being unable to mount action.
Mackney added that Natfhe was legally bound to deal with each college individually. "Whilst we respect the national bargaining mechanism, if there's a dispute it's with each employer."
