The University and College Union will stage UK-wide strikes on 24 and 25 November, followed by a third walkout five days later on 30 November, it has been confirmed.
Academics will take industrial action over pay and working conditions, with 150 universities able to take part for the first time in the long-running disputes. Sixty-seven of the branches are also striking over changes to pensions provided by the Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS).
It means that about 70,000 UCU members could take part in the action after the union ran an aggregated ballot for the first time in recent years. UK universities will have been affected by strikes for five years in a row and the union’s leader, Jo Grady, said that the latest action would be on a “scale never seen before”.
