Why are university staff going on strike again?

Hundreds of thousands of students have been hit by two waves of walkouts in less than two years – and now they are due to be hit by a third round of strike action.

Lecturers, librarians, technicians and other academic staff are set to walk out for another 14 days in 74 universities across the UK this month amid an ongoing dispute over pensions, pay and conditions.

Students currently in their third year saw their lectures and seminars cancelled in their freshers year and then again last term. Now they face even more disruption during their final months at university.

So why have university staff taken unprecedented strike action in recent years?

Members of the University and College Union (UCU) first staged 14 days of action in 65 universities across the UK between February and March 2018 in a row over their pensions.

The union said the proposals to overhaul the universities superannuation scheme (USS), the sector’s biggest pension fund, would leave a typical lecturer up to £10,000 a year worse off during retirement.

But Universities UK (UUK), which represents employers in pensions negotiations, argued that changes were needed to make the scheme financially viable, adding that it had a deficit of more than £6bn.

In November and December last year, staff walked out once again as the row over pensions rumbled on.

It came after universities pushed through plans to make members pay 9.6 per cent of their salary into their pension, up from 8 per cent last April, as they argued higher contributions were needed to meet rising costs of the scheme. But the union says members’ contributions should be capped at 8 per cent.

However, it is not only pensions that university staff are unhappy with. The eight-day walkout before Christmas was also over pay, equality, casualisation and workloads which staff say have got worse.

The union is demanding more action to close the pay gap for women and ethnic minorities, adding that pay for university staff has fallen by around 20 per cent in real-terms over the past decade.

It is very likely that the third wave of strikes will take place later this month and the union has warned that even more action could be held in the summer term if disputes are not resolved.

University staff are fed up with hearing about vice-chancellors being handed larger pay packets, as high as £550,000 a year, at a time when they feel their conditions are simply deteriorating.

But the danger is that students, who now pay up to £9,250 a year, could lose sympathy with the academics if their education continues to be significantly disrupted.