University management “don’t understand what staff are going through” and can invest in employees if they rethink their priorities, union members stressed as they began an unprecedented 18 days of strikes.
Institutions across the country faced disruption as the industrial action got under way, with city centres from Glasgow to London filling with striking university workers, joining teachers and those from other sectors who had also walked out.
The University and College Union said it had received “massive support” on the picket lines but employers claimed the strikes were having a “low and isolated impact”.
Attempts to avert the strikes had been made by the Universities and Colleges Employers Association (Ucea), which upped its pay offer for staff from between 4 and 7 per cent to between 5 and 8 per cent.
