"Left with no choice" - Staff at City of Portsmouth College to strike for three days over pay dispute
Staff at City of Portsmouth College are set to go on a three day strike next week as they say they have been “left with no choice”.
Members of the University and College Union (UCU) will be striking from Wednesday, January 14 to Friday, January 16 after the union and college could not come to an agreement over pay and working conditions,
UCU general secretary Jo Grady said: “Industrial action is last resort for our members, but staff at City of Portsmouth College have been left with no choice. There is still time for management to make a fair offer that helps close the pay gap between school and college teachers.
“Our demands are reasonable, and management needs to look at those that worked to settle their disputes. Employers must now agree to meaningful sectoral bargaining so further education can avoid the cycle of strike ballots and disruption that we have seen over the past few years.”
The UCU members are not the only ones to be striking at the college with National Education Union members also taking action at the same time. Member of the UCU will be setting picket lines at the Highbury and North Harbour campuses while NEU will picketing on the Tangier Road campus.
UCU alongside its sister unions NEU, GMB, UNISON and Unite, are calling for further education staff to have pay parity with schoolteachers, national workload agreements and a binding national bargaining framework.
City of Portsmouth College have been approached for comment.