Lecturers at a large college in Leicester have taken action over a new contract which they claim cuts their holiday allowance by four days a year.
Around 200 lecturers have walked out of Leicester College. They are represented by Natfhe, the university and college lecturers' union.
Natfhe said that the lecturers were striking over a new contract which includes four days' less holiday and which has been introduced, they said, without negotiation with unions. The college says it wants to use the four days, out of a quota of 60 a year, for training purposes.
The union said the strike was having a big impact. However the college said that 85% of classes at Leicester College were running as normal on the first day of the strike yesterday.
Russ Escritt, Natfhe regional official, said: "Members are still out on strike; as far as we can see from outside the buildings, there is little going on in the college. Our action is having quite an impact, but there is no movement from the management yet.
"Our problem is that the management has introduced a new contract without negotiating it with the union. It will end up with people working side by side under different contracts with different holiday allowances and that will cause divisions. We want the new contract withdrawn and we want them to return to talks with us."
Marianne Harris-Bridge, director of corporate affairs at the college, said: "Yesterday we think we operated at about 85% of normal, while we had about 15% of lecturers striking. That is quite positive. We had to cancel a lot of construction classes yesterday because a lot of lecturers were out there. But the action was minimal."
"We are getting more and more people to take up the new contract so that is positive too. We are minimising disruption as much as we can and we hope it does not go on for very long," she said.
Ms Harris-Bridge added that they were waiting to hear if the union was going to come up with any other proposals for the new contract.
Leicester College caters for 42,000 students based in four campuses, the community, and certain company locations.
