University and College Union staff launch third round of strikes

Staff at the UK’s main higher education union are set to embark on a third round of strike action, walking out for three days next week in an increasingly bitter dispute with managers.

Members of Unite working at the University and College Union will down tools between 9 and 11 December after talks held at the Acas conciliation service ended without resolution on 5 December.

What started as a dispute over allegations of workplace racism and breaches of collective agreements has escalated with the announcement of a staff restructure last month, Unite said. It added that UCU had refused to begin annual pay negotiations until the dispute is resolved, “leading to an effective four-month pay freeze”.

Unite members working at the union had already walked out on 30 May, leading to the cancellation of the second day of UCU’s annual congress, and then again on 1 and 3 July, despite bosses agreeing to commission an independent review of its organisational culture.

Indefinite strike action had been due to get under way from 9 September, but this was called off when a last-minute deal was struck at Acas. But Unite said that since then there has been “very slow progress on some issues with others now stalled or never discussed”.

The row comes as UCU continues its own dispute with universities over pay and working conditions, with a fresh round of sector strike action one of the options on the table.

“UCU management continue to drag their feet on dealing with the issues being raised by staff. Time and again they promise to deal with them and then nothing happens. To add insult to injury they have now refused pay talks and attempted to impose a restructure of staff while this dispute is ongoing,” said Andy Murray, a Unite national officer.

“The timing of the restructure is highly damaging because it not only pre-empts the independent review into organisation culture which will specifically look at UCU’s structures, but it comes as Unite embarks on a re-ballot over the current dispute and seems designed to further undermine already broken industrial relations.

“Unite remains committed to negotiating solutions to the dispute at UCU and urges UCU to return to the negotiating table.”

A UCU spokesperson said that the planned restructure reflected “limited changes to staffing arrangements that…come in response to listening to recommendations from both members and staff themselves”, emphasising that no redundancies were planned and only 14 of 216 employees’ job descriptions were being changed.

“We are both confused and deeply concerned about the decision to call strike action in response to such limited proposed changes to staffing whilst UCU is fighting on behalf of thousands of members who are facing job losses and department closures…especially when any proposed changes to staffing arrangements are completely unrelated to the existing dispute that was declared in March 2024,” the spokesperson said.

“Over many months talks have been ongoing with significant progress being achieved around the terms of the existing dispute which have covered organisational culture, health and safety, equalities issues, and adherence to procedures. This unnecessary strike action now undermines any efforts to achieve a resolution and puts the intentions of Unite in doubt.”

chris.havergal@timeshighereducation.com