Bosses at London Metropolitan University are seeking a legal injunction to prevent lecturers from taking strike action on Wednesday over a row about new contracts.
The legal battle, which started today and has been adjourned until tomorrow, is the latest in a bitter and escalating row over work contracts, following the merger of London Guildhall University and the University of North London last year.
The lecturers' union Natfhe has accused the university of escalating the dispute by seeking legal recourse, but the vice-chancellor, Brian Roper, insisted: "We can't stand by and let it go on."
The strike is planned to coincide with freshers week when thousands of new students are due to take induction classes at the university.
Staff are objecting to the management's insistence that they all move on to one contract - they had been working under separate contracts from their old universities. Natfhe said the move will leave some employees worse off than before. It claims the university threatened to sack 387 staff who refused to move to the new contract by the September 1 deadline.
The deadline has now passed and staff are still working under their old contracts, although the university insists that by not resigning they have consented to the new ones.
Natfhe said it was "outraged" that following recent moves to reopen talks, the university, which it has accused of bullying them into the new contracts, was "raising the temperature".
The head of the union's universities department, Roger Kline, said: "Academic staff at London Met and their Natfhe representatives are outraged that the university appears to have resorted to the courts when we had reached an agreement with the vice-chancellor, on September 1, on how talks would proceed. Only the apparent inability of the university to adhere to that agreement has prevented talks from starting already. We are shocked that the university has raised the temperature, but our refusal to be intimidated will hopefully bring the university to the negotiating table. We remain available for talks."
But the university insists that the ballot to strike held by the union was flawed and is confident it will be able to halt Wednesday's action.
Mr Roper said: "We are arguing that the ballot can't be relied upon and we want them to desist on the basis of that. We will have great difficulty on Wednesday. It's a immensely complex week and we can't stand by and let it go on.
"The legal action has to continue because of the needs of our students. If it were to be the case that students became alienated by this action we would all feel the consequences."
Despite the court action, Mr Roper said he would be willing to discuss the issue with the union "any time, any place, anywhere".
