UK Higher Education Unions hold national strike today.
7 March 2006
UK academic staff are striking today after their national employer body – the UCEA – reneged on an earlier deal to flow one-third of additional funds from fees into improved salaries. The strike is to be followed by a ban on marking and some other duties.
NTEU has expressed its full support for members of the Association of University Teachers (UK) and the National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education (NATFHE).
For latest reports on the strike: http://www.natfhe.org.uk/
NTEU’s message of support to UK staff:
Message to Colleagues at UK Universities:
On behalf of the National Tertiary Education Union in Australia, and its 27,000 members, I wish academic and related staff union members in the United Kingdom every success in your national strike today and in your ongoing industrial and political campaign for salary justice.
We have followed the UK debate over fees and salaries in recent years, and everyone agreed that the issue of inadequate academic salaries would be addressed now that significant additional funds are to flow to higher education.
However, the position now taken by UCEA is nothing less than an act of treachery against their own staff - something we have also grown accustomed to all too often in Australia, just as we have become accustomed to spiraling Vice-Chancellor’s salaries.
Globalisation requires global solidarity. From Australia, we give you our full support today, and until you achieve victory.
In solidarity,
GRAHAME MCCULLOCH
NTEU General Secretary