Staff set to walk out in dispute over pay and conditions
A picket at the university during a previous strike action. Picture: Roehampton UCU
Another wave of industrial action is set to hit the University of Roehampton with staff planning to walk out in a protest over pay and conditions.
The staff will be joining those from nine other universities in London when they start their industrial action on Monday (28 March). It will continue for five days until Friday 1 April.
Across the country over 50,000 staff at 68 universities are striking during March with over one million students impacted.
This is the third round of strike action of the academic year. Previous staff took action over three weeks, from Monday 14 February to Wednesday 2 March, and previously went on strike for three days in December 2021.
Some of the strikes are prompted by cuts to pension entitlements but this is not a reason for action taking place at Roehampton
Industrial ballots a opened at 149 universities earlier this month and will run until Friday 8 April. Successful ballots will pave the way for additional action to be called throughout 2022.
The staff’s union, the UCU, claims that pay is down in real terms by 25.5% since 2009 and that many academics are employed on insecure contracts.
UCU general secretary Jo Grady said: ‘Vice chancellors across the UK have the power to end these disputes. The money is there to pay staff properly, tackle punishing working conditions and reverse pension cuts that will devastate retirement incomes. Instead, university bosses are choosing to sit on reserves worth tens of billions of pounds and make their own staff suffer. That’s why we are out on picket lines yet again.
'By continuing to ignore the longstanding and serious concerns of staff, vice chancellors are not only pushing their own workforce to breaking point, but also doing serious harm to the future of higher education and preventing it from being the best it can be.’
The University of Roehampton have claimed previously that only 1 in 5 members of staff eligible to join the union have voted in favour of striking and that they have implemented the national pay award for staff in full despite not receiving full funding from the government to do so. They have also said that they are consulting with the union on academic workload.
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March 25, 2022
