Lecturers on strike in pay row
AROUND 100 angry lecturers brought studies at Sandwell College to a standstill today as they went out on strike over pay.
Members of the University and College Union went ahead with their day of action after last-minute talks failed yesterday and despite the heavy snowfalls this morning.
The Smethwick and West Bromwich campuses are being picketed as staff step up their action over a national pay deal that was never implemented at the college.
Union representatives were locked in all-day talks with management yesterday as they sought to thrash out an 11th-hour compromise. But the discussions failed to lead to a breakthrough because the college would not agree to a role for conciliation service ACAS, whose intervention was backed by UCU.
Maureen Henry-Johnson, senior UCU branch secretary at Sandwell College, said around 90 per cent of lecturing staff belonged to the union, and expected the strike to bite hard. “This action will alert managers to the fact that they have been giving us these promises since 2004, and this is the second time they have not delivered,” she said.
The national pay deal would have left a mid-ranking further education lecturer earning £4,511 more a year. The UCU’s West Midlands regional official Nick Varney said yesterday that the union was happy for ACAS to get involved in the dispute, but that the college did not support the intervention.
He added this morning: “The weather will affect people’s ability to join the picket lines, but the strike is going ahead.”
