Lecturers to join one-day strike

Lecturers are to join teachers on a one-day strike next week

Further education college lecturers have voted for a one-day strike over pay on the same day as school teachers.

The University and College Union says lecturers in more than 250 colleges in England will strike on 24 April.

This will mean disruption to colleges on the same day that members of the National Union of Teachers stage their strike over pay.

The lecturers' union wants its members' pay to be raised to the level of school teachers.

Sally Hunt, the UCU's general secretary, says the "treatment of further education staff is a scandal. Pay has been further eroded by below-inflation pay awards".

'Unfair'

"The considerable difference in the average pay of lecturers and teachers doing the same work is grossly unfair.

"It is more than four years since further education employers agreed to move lecturers to the same length pay scales as school teachers but 47% of colleges still haven't done that," said the college union leader.

The UCU has submitted a pay claim for a 6% increase or �1,500, whichever is greater.

Among those members who voted, the union says that 65.5% supported strike action over pay - in a turn-out of 38.6%.

The one-day strike has been criticised by college employers. Sue Dutton of the Association of Colleges said: "The action is unprecedented as it is being called before national pay negotiations have even begun."

The college lecturers' protest will mean a day of widespread disruption in education.

A survey has suggested that half of schools in England and Wales could be forced to shut by the teachers' strike next week, in what will be the first national teachers' strike for 21 years.

The strike action is going ahead as planned, despite the death of the NUT's general secretary Steve Sinnott.

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