University staff say they will strike during freshers’ week unless employers agree to discuss their demands over pay and working conditions.
Lecturers, librarians and technicians are among staff from 136 universities, members of the University and College Union (UCU), who plan to strike for five days at the start of the academic year, from 25 to 29 September.
It comes as the union withdraws the marking and assessment boycott that has left thousands of university students without their degree results since it began on 20 April.
UCU members have declined to mark final exams, dissertations and coursework since the boycott began, which meant that some students graduated this summer without knowing their degree results or course marks, and some whether they had even graduated. Most universities instead issued provisional results or certificates so that students could graduate on time.
Thousands of the UK’s 500,000 final-year undergraduates are thought to have been affected by the boycott at 145 universities across the country.
Members of the union also voted to reject a pay offer for 2023-24, which was worth between 5% and 8%.
“Universities are richer than ever, generating tens of billions of pounds in income and hoarding billions more in cash deposits,” the UCU’s general secretary, Jo Grady, said. “But they won’t give staff their fair share. A pay award of 5% is a huge real-terms pay cut and is substantially lower than schoolteachers received.”
