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Wales Online

National

Abbie Wightwick

University staff in Wales will strike for eight days later this month - these are the dates

University staff in Wales are walking out in eight days of strikes in a row over pension and pay and working conditions.

University College Union (UCU) staff at Cardiff University , Bangor University and the University of Trinity St David are joining colleagues at 60 universities around the UK going on strike.

The industrial action is set to take place from November 25 to December 4.

Last year university campuses were brought to a standstill by unprecedented levels of strike action . The UCU warned they would have to repond “respond positively and quickly” if they want to avoid disruption again this year.

“Universities can be in no doubt about strength of feeling amongst staff,” the union warned.

Staff at Welsh universities were among staff at 64 institutions who walked out in 2018 in a pensions dispute that has not been fully resolved since.

Last week UCU members backed strike action in two separate legal disputes, one on pensions and one on pay and working conditions.

In the ballot over changes to pensions 79% of UCU members who voted back strike action. For the ballot on pay, equality, casualisation and workloads, 74% of members polled backed strike action.

UCU members at Cardiff University voted again for strike action. (Walesonline/Rob Browne)

As well as eight strike days, union members will begin “action short of a strike” when they return to work. This involves working strictly to contract, not covering for absent colleagues and refusing to reschedule lectures lost to strike action.

Bangor University senior lecturer in film Dr Dyfrig Jones said the ballot for strike action reflected increasingly low morale among university staff in Wales and elsewhere after years of cuts.

"Staff coming in are being put on precarious contracts with weak conditions and no long term security" he said.

"A decade of austerity has hit pay packets but we are not just asking for a pay increase, there are also issues about equality of pay and casualisation.

He said staff are angry that universities have not taken up recommendations of a national review body set up at the end of the last strike. This means members will have to potentially pay more into their pension pots and get less out.

Disputes centre on changes to the Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS) and what the union says us universities’ failure to make improvements on pay, equality, casualisation and workloads.

UCU general secretary Jo Grady said: “The first wave of strikes will hit universities later this month unless the employers start talking to us seriously about how they are going to deal with rising pension costs and declining pay and conditions.

“Universities can be in no doubt about the strength of feeling on these issues and we will be consulting branches whose desire to strike was frustrated by anti-union laws about reballoting.”

The UCU said it was frustrated that members had to be balloted again, but that universities’ refusal to deal with their concerns had left them with no choice.

Bangor University staff also backed strike action (Bangor University)

Last month, UK shadow education secretary Angela Rayner called on both sides to get round the table for urgent talks. She said she fully supported UCU members fighting for fair pay and decent pensions and called on both sides to work together to find solutions to the disputes.