Welsh further education staff have threatened employers with industrial action, after rejecting 4% a pay increase.
While their English colleagues voted yes, Welsh lecturers yesterday rejected a pay deal that David Gibson, chief executive of the Association of Colleges, says would have amounted to a 4.25% increase.
The union representing lecturers and teachers throughout England, Wales and Northern Ireland, NATFHE, argues the colleges were only offering 2.5%; the rest was being paid by the National Assembly, which should have been in addition to, not supplementary to, any pay increase from employers.
Today, a NATFHE spokesman said urgent discussions are being sought and strikes remain a real possibility in Wales.
A spokesman for the employers said: "They really are laying it on a bit thick, particularly in the current climate."
Early this summer, NATFHE threatened to take industrial action rather than accept a 2.5% pay increase. But last month, the offer was increased to 4%, and in a ballot completed yesterday, more than nine out of 10 English lecturers voted in favour of the new pay deal.
Both Mr Gibson and NATFHE's general secretary Paul Mackney said today they are pleased by the deal in England. The employers are particularly happy no classes will be disrupted and all staff will receive a large pay increase, not just lecturers.
