Students at 150 UK universities face further disruption after lecturers and staff voted in favour of a national strike in an ongoing row over pay and pensions.
The University and College Union on Monday said its members had broken the threshold of 50 per cent turnout required for strike action in two separate ballots.
The votes mark the first time an education union has secured a mandate for a national walkout since laws curbing unions’ ability to call strikes were introduced in 2016 and come amid an intensifying cost of living crisis.
They also set the stage for months of disrupted classes alongside further potential strikes in schools and colleges.
Jo Grady, UCU general secretary, said university workers were “willing to bring the entire sector to a standstill, if serious negotiations did not start very soon”.
“University staff are crucial workers in communities up and down the UK. They are sending a clear message that they will not accept falling pay, insecure employment and attacks on pensions.”
UK universities have been locked in a dispute over pensions, pay and working conditions since 2018, with 10 days of strikes at the start of this year.
Previously, individual UCU branches had to secure their own mandates to hold walkouts. But in this round of balloting, the union sought a mandate across all universities.
In the ballot on pay and working conditions, 81.1 per cent of respondents voted to strike, with a turnout of 57.8 per cent among members at 145 universities.
In a second ballot on pensions, 84.9 per cent of respondents at 67 institutions that participate in the Universities Superannuation Scheme voted in favour of walkouts, on a turnout of 60.2 per cent.
The union will decide its next steps at a national meeting on November 3.
The likely strikes will add to a wave of UK industrial unrest, as workers demand pay rises in line with inflation, which is at 10.1 per cent.
While the three biggest teaching unions last week moved towards walkouts in protest at a funding squeeze, UCU members at further education colleges are already striking.
The UCU called for a “meaningful pay rise” for all university staff in response to the cost of living crisis, saying they had been offered an increase of 3 per cent this year. It added that it wanted controversial cuts made to the USS scheme at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic to be reversed.
Universities UK, which represents the sector and oversees talks on pension terms, said pension contributions were “at the very limit of affordability”.
“Universities are adept at mitigating the impact of strikes on student learning, and so prepared for any further possible industrial action over the coming months.”
