Birmingham City University is one of the only universities that WON’T be striking

Earlier this week it was announced by the University and College Union (UCU) that all universities will be striking on November 24th, 25th and 30th.

However, it has been revealed that three universities will not be taking part in these strikes, and Birmingham City University is one of these unis. The other two universities that will not be striking are Nottingham Trent University and Ruskin College in Oxford.

Following the Twitter announcement from the UCU about the strikes, Birmingham City University’s UCU branch replied to the tweet saying they will not be taking part “as [they] are locked out of the national bargaining framework”. However they said they “stand with the union nationally”.

A spokesperson for BCU’s local branch on the UCU told The Birmingham Tab that the reason why they are “locked out of the bargaining framework” is because “nearly all universities have a national pay agreement where national UCU negotiators meet with nationally elected representatives of those universities”, but said BCU leadership are not part of this arrangement.

Due to this, BCU’s UCU “negotiate pay and other terms between BCU leadership and locally elected UCU representatives”. This therefore means that legally BCU could not be included in the UCU national ballot “because any agreement made at national meetings is not one agreed by the BCU leadership team so not one our members can strike for”.

Although BCU lecturers and staff part of the UCU will not striking, they are still campaigning for higher pay internally and asking for the same pay rises that other universities are striking for.

However, UCU members at BCU may still have an opportunity to strike: “UCU members at BCU are in a dispute with the university and will be balloting members from next Wednesday. If members vote to strike and no better offer is achieved it is likely that BCU will take parallel strike action alongside but not in the same dispute as other UCU members in the Spring”.

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•Birmingham UCU is balloting members on further strike action

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