College and university lecturers in pay strike

College and university lecturers in Scotland will go on strike today over pay. Picture: Jon Savage

Unions say the average lecturer has had a 14 per cent pay cut in real terms since 2009, despite the higher education sector being “comfortably in surplus” each year.

Workers want an improvement on the 1 per cent increase offered in May.

The University and College Union (UCU), Unison and Unite members staged a walkout in October, leading to cancelled lectures and closed study libraries.

Picket lines are again expected at universities across the country as the Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS), Scotland’s largest teaching union, joined today’s action.

EIS general secretary Larry Flanagan said: “Strike action is always the last resort for any trade union but it is the point which we have reached in the pay dispute with the University Employers’ Association.

“The employers do not seem to understand the effect that four years of sub-inflationary pay rises have on their staff.

“Members literally cannot afford to go on like this, and that is why we have joined our three sister unions and colleagues in taking concerted action to pursue our claim for fair pay.”

The EIS said all higher education institutions will be affected by the strike with the exception of Scotland’s Rural College, University of the Highlands and Islands and the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland as they are out-with national pay bargaining.