STRIKE: Southampton to Participate in UK-wide WALK-OUT

Southampton University lecturers are to participate in a strike over pay.

Lecturers at universities across the UK will walk out on Thursday 31^st October, as the three largest education unions overwhelmingly vote for industrial action in a long, and increasingly bitter, dispute over pay.

UCU, Unison and Unite have all collaborated to send their strongest message yet to university leaders. Southampton’s UCU branch urged members to vote for a one day strike, a motion which was passed with 61.5% agreement, with 77% voting for the less specific “industrial action” in a separate vote. Unison’s ballot resulted in 54.4% of members in favour of a strike, and Unite with 64.2% in favour.

Staff have been offered a pay rise of just 1% this year, well below the inflation rate of 2.7% (August 2013). Staff will have suffered a pay cut in real terms of 13% since October 2008, in what The Observer’s Will Hutton described as

One of the largest sustained wage cuts any profession has suffered since the Second World War.

Pay cuts have come at a time when pay and benefits for university leaders have increased by an average of more than £5,000 in 2011-12.  The average pay and pensions package for a university vice-chancellor now reaches almost £250,000 per annum. UCU has criticised university bosses’ “lack of self-awareness” saying their pleads of poverty when it came to paying staff was “an embarrassment to higher education”.

In a front-page post, the Southampton UCU website attacks the University of Southampton for sacking over 200 support staff, despite making a £15million surplus in the last financial year. Southampton UCU has stated “[The University] can afford to pay more, and employ more staff”.

The strike, ominously referred to as “the first” on many official union releases, will go ahead unless the row over pay can be resolved in the next two weeks. Representatives for each of the three unions have called for universities to come back with better offers, with Unite representative Mike McCartney saying:

We urge them to get back around the negotiating table with the three unions to resolve it once and for all.

Negotiations between union representatives and universities continue. At this time, the University has not released a statement regarding the strike or how the University will function on the 31st October but will provide information closer to the time for staff and students.

What do you think about the situation? Let us know in the comments.