Another strike date at King’s announced by the UCU as talks go on

King’s staff will be striking on the 15th March as the UCU has given notice employers about the further day of strike action.

This means that Wednesday 15th, Thursday 16th, Friday 17th, Monday 20th, Tuesday 21st and Wednesday 22nd March will all be strike dates in the following weeks.

The UCU is negotiating with employers via conciliation service Acas. Employers had initially agreed not to impose a pay offer but UCEA, an employers body, had instructed its members to implement the first part of the pay offer, despite there never being an agreement.

The UCU remains in negotiations with UCEA and Jo Grady, General Secretary of the UCU, has confirmed progress was being made across non-pay areas.

They believe that this new strike date ‘is the right balance’ of pressure to allow an agreement to be reached.

UCU general secretary Jo Grady said: ‘I’m pleased to say – that whilst Acas talks take place on a confidential basis, I can say that we are making progress across a range of subjects at Acas and will bring your more information on that as those talks come to a natural conclusion.

The reasons we’ve added this additional date is to focus the employers mind as talks come to a conclusion this week and especially early next week. They need to have on them the maximum amount of pressure. We believe adding this additional day, which replaces one of the five that was moved aside for the pause is the right balance.

We are coming out of this period now where we have put pressure on the employer, we have reduced the cost and financial impact on you of strike action, and we have made progress in several key areas on non-pay, and obviously you are aware of the massive progress we have made on pensions. What we now need to do is force the employer to sign off these commitments at Acas, continue to go further than they have gone before, to recognise the depth of feeling that is out there on pay, and improve their pay offer.

The crucial thing now though is that you get the word out about the action, but more crucial than that is that you vote yes in the reballot.’

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