Higher education unions call for second strike day.

The University and College Union (UCU), Unite, Unison and the Education Institute of Scotland (EIS) have called for a second day of strike action on 3 December 2013.

On 3 December members of staff and students at universities throughout the UK will be striking in continued action taking place in response to proposed staff wage cuts, the persistence of a gender pay gap in higher education institutions and lack of a living wage for all staff.

The gender pay gap in these institutions stands at 14 per cent, while staff pay cuts are set to take place for the fifth year in a row.

The University and College Union said that: ‘staff have faced a real terms pay cut of 13 per cent since 2008’, and regretted that staff employers had not agreed to talk to prevent the first strike action of October 31.

They are therefore not optimistic about conducive agreements being made to prevent the second day of strikes in December.

In the strike action carried out in October students at the School of Oriental and Asian Studies (SOAS, London) where the gender pay gap stands at 12 per cent in favour of male staff, said that: ‘…the strike isn’t just about fair pay, it’s also about the trebling of tuition fees, the privatisation and commodification of higher education, and appalling conditions for outsourced workers’.

And, they concluded: ‘This struggle is our struggle too!’

Despite the controversial and in my view abysmal tuition fee rise in 2010, a move a recent Independent Commission on Fees report found is putting mature students off applying to universities, staff continue to face financial hardship as wages fail to rise with inflation or continue to be cut.

This is despite evidence that all the striking Unions recognise, and as the University and College Union point out, that ‘the cumulative operating surplus in the higher education sector is now over £1 billion and many higher education institutions have built up cash reserves’.

On top of which ‘…staff costs in higher education, as a proportion of income, have fallen from 58 per cent in 2001/2002, to 55.5 per cent in 2011/2012’.

This at a time when pay and benefits for university leaders is increasing, with university vice-chancellors’ earnings reaching almost £250,000 per year.

The University College London Union (UCLU), the students’ union attached to the University College London (UCL) said that ‘workers have tried to negotiate for a fair deal, but university bosses have stubbornly refused, leaving them with no option but to take action’.

This is because ‘staff are expected to work harder and harder while supporting themselves and their families on wages that have already fallen by a massive 13 per cent’.

The continued existence of a gender pay gap between male and female staff in higher education institutions is shocking.

It sends out a message that it is reasonable for women not to be fairly recompensed for their exertions, and that gender inequality is supported and sanctioned by the country’s education authorities.

Likewise the lack of a living wage for various positions across universities indicates a willingness to continue with hierarchical systems that scorn those in various positions, an attitude that is at odds with universities’ role as open-minded establishments that foster free thinking and encourage positive societal change.

In justification of the pay rise cuts UCL said that ‘the HE [higher education] sector continues to face considerable uncertainty and financial insecurity’ and that ‘the outlook for public funding for HE remains uncertain due to predicted cuts to government expenditure and funding for teaching is more unpredictable’.

According to financial data, in 2012 UCL had a financial surplus of £26.4 million, and its income from Funding Council grants was listed as £198.3million.

To find out more – or to support the strike – click here or follow the links for the unions listed who are calling for the strike.