Lecturers to be balloted for further strike action

Published on Friday 10 February 2012 15:50

University and college lecturers are to be balloted for further strike action over the Government’s controversial changes to public sector pensions.

The University and College Union (UCU) said members will be asked if they agree with a recommendation to refuse the Government’s offer and will back further walkouts.

If approved, action could start with a one-day walkout at the end of next month.

The union said its national executive (NEC) had withdrawn a previous call for rolling strikes throughout February. It is recommending that the Government’s offer on pensions be rejected.

The ballot will open during the next week and close in the middle of March.

UCU general secretary Sally Hunt said: “The Government’s proposals still come up short, even after repeated attempts by the education unions, over months of hard negotiation, to win protection for pensions.

“UCU is always stronger when we seek our members’ views before acting so I am personally delighted that the NEC has now agreed to a consultative ballot and that what we do next will be decided by our members themselves.”

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Markucu

Saturday, February 11, 2012 at 06:57 AM

What was actually agreed at today's UCU National Executive: The UCU NEC unanimously agreed to join with our sister trade union the NUT, and the PCS, and therefore to re-schedule our previously agreed date for national strike action from March 1st to March 28th in line with the unanimous decision of their NECs.  We unanimously agreed to conduct a campaigning consultative e-survey of members - as are the NUT and PCS, with a very strong recommendation to agree with the NEC's decision to reject the Heads of Agreement (HoA) - the so-called 'final offer', and to move to further coordinated strike action with our trade union colleagues in other unions.  The NEC agreed we had no need to re-ballot our members with regards to taking industrial action.  Such an industrial action ballot, as a few had previously suggested we conduct, would  have involved  formal membership checks, and notifying the employers of our balloting timetable, categories and numbers of members at each work site, etc, etc - as happened in the USS re-ballot. NEC agreed that such a ballot was not required as we already have sufficient legal mandate for further strike action. Instead what the NEC has now unanimously agreed is an internal e-survey to see if our members agree with the NEC position that we reject the HoA and agree to take further strike action commencing with a day's strike on March 28th.  It was agreed that the members e-survey will commence following a significant national campaign across all TPS branches arguing why members should reject the HoA and the necessity of taking further industrial action in order to defend their pensions. As part of that campaign we will argue that the HoA did not indicate a 'significant change'  to the earlier 'final offer', and as such is totally unacceptable to us given that our members are still expected to work longer, pay more, and get less.  When, as we believe they will, members indicate they agree with our position, we will submit notice to our employers - on the basis of our existing, and live, industrial action ballot, that we intend to strike on March 28th.

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