Staff to hold rally outside Barking and Dagenham College in protest against management's failure to improve the working lives of staff

The rally will be held outside the college's Rush Green Campus on Dagenham Road at 12.30 and will hear from UCU president elect and further education tutor, Maxine Looby. 

  The union is calling for management to agree to: 

• a pay increase of 15.4%, backdated to 1 August 2023 
• stress risk assessments in each department 
• managers to undertake training in stress risk assessment and stress management 
• implementation of actions arising from health and safety workload inspection reports and staff surveys 
• a working group to be set up to tackle workplace stress.

The college has so far imposed a pay rise of only 6.5% without negotiating with UCU and is only paying it from January 2024, not August 2023 as the employer body, the Association of Colleges (AoC) recommended, and staff have called for. 

UCU regional support official Caroline Lake said: 'Our members will be out in force calling for management to pay staff properly. Staff dedicate their lives to improving opportunities for local people and deserve more than the real term pay cut that has been imposed on them. It is also time the college took issues such as workload and stress seriously and put in place measures to support staff.'