Lecturers at Napier and Queen Margaret join UCU strike over pay and conditions

Academic staff at Edinburgh Napier University and Queen Margaret University (QMU) have joined the University and College’s Union (UCU) strike over pay and conditions.

Staff at Heriot Watt and the University of Edinburgh have been on strike for the past week and are now entering their second week of industrial action.

This means all four universities in Edinburgh are currently affected by strike action.

UCU’s Napier branch told The Edinburgh Tab: “We strike reluctantly, as we know that it impacts our students”, adding: “We hope as many staff and students as possible will show their solidarity – our success benefits everyone.”

Last week’s strike action was over proposed cuts to lecturers’ pensions through reforms of the University’s Supperannuation Scheme (USS) – and only UCU members at Edinburgh and Heriot Watt were balloted for strike action on this.

However, this week’s strike action is over both pensions and what the UCU is calling the “Four Fights”: low pay, high workload, precarious employment contracts, and gender and race pay gaps.

UCU members at Napier and QMU – as well as Edinburgh and Heriot Watt – were all balloted on the Four Fights so will be walking out today (Monday 21st February) and tomorrow (Tuesday 22nd February).

Next week’s strike action is only over the Four Fights – which means lecturers and tutors at all four Edinburgh unis will be walking out again on Monday 28th February, Tuesday 1st March, and Wednesday 2nd March.

Additionally, members of UNISON (who represent both support staff and some academics at Napier) will be joining the UCU strikes next Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday as well.

UCU Scotland now estimate that this week a total of 6000 of their academic members will be on strike across 11 different institutions across Scotland.

Napier UCU however alleges that their university has taken the “punitive decision” to not spread out deductions for strike action. They claim that even though this makes strike action more costly for their members, “We can’t afford not to strike either. We are exhausted. Better working conditions for staff mean better learning conditions for students.”

When asked why they were going on strike despite this, a spokesperson for the Napier UCU told The Edinburgh Tab they wanted “to fight against exploitative working conditions: where women and gender minorities together with ethnic and racialised minorities earn less; where regular teaching staff work on hourly paid and short-term, casual contracts; where there is a widespread workload and mental health crisis in universities; where University management take pay rises, while our salaries have not even been properly adjusted to inflation levels for a number of years.

“UCU members on the picket lines at Edinburgh Napier care deeply about these issues. Among us are those who have had to up-end their lives to move across the country to find a secure job. There are those who work in precarious hourly-paid or short-term contracts, who work across multiple institutions miles apart. All of us work long hours, late into the evening and across weekends. This does not reflect occasional fluctuations in workload, but is a regular feature of our working lives – it affects our family lives, it affects our mental health.”

A spokesperson for Edinburgh Napier University said: “The action is being taken in relation to 2020/21 national pay negotiations, in which the University, along with 146 other Universities, have worked with the University and Colleges Employers’ Association and the five main trade unions to achieve a fair and affordable award outcome.

“Furthermore, Edinburgh Napier has the lower gender pay gap across the sector and has committed an additional £10m in staffing, which includes strategic investment to drive our research performance and additional resource to help address workload issues, improve staff to student ratios and support wellbeing initiatives, innovation and the return of front-line services. We are also in the middle of a £7m programme of investment in our campus infrastructure. In addition, as a thank you for their hard work, we also paid a bonus of up to £500 to staff in July 2021 and gave additional fixed leave days to support staff by taking extended breaks.”

Recommended related articles by this writer

• Revealed: University of Edinburgh saves £57,000 a day during strike action

• From ASOS to Zoom pickets: Everything you need to know about the strikes

• UCU and NUS are holding a protest at the Scottish Parliament on Tuesday at 12:30pm