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ETC

New strike dates set to hit start of term at five colleges in the North East

30 August 2024

Staff at five colleges in Cleveland, Redcar and Stockton-on-Tees will strike for four days next month in a long running dispute over low pay that has already seen staff down tools for nine days.

The full strike days are:

  • Tuesday 10 September
  • Wednesday 11 September
  • Thursday 12 September
  • Wednesday 18 September

The strike days will hit classes during the new term's first two weeks of teaching. Staff will be picketing at specific locations across the colleges on each day of action.

The strike action is the latest escalation after staff rejected employer Education Training Collective's (ETC) most recent pay offer. This amounts to a paltry increase of just 3% for 2022/23, with an additional 1% from May 2023. Staff have also already overwhelmingly passed a vote of no confidence in the group principal Grant Glendinning.

ETC, which runs Bede Sixth Form College, NETA Training Group, Stockton Riverside College, The Skills Academy, and Redcar and Cleveland College, has over £6 million in the bank, and in 2022, over £300k went to college principals. Yet it is currently trying to hire a health and social care lecturer on a zero hour contract.

UCU general secretary Jo Grady said: 'Despite already taking nine days of strike action, ETC is still trying to force our members to accept poverty pay. Due to the employer's actions, there is now a clear breakdown in industrial relations, and it is refusing to constructively engage in the collective bargaining process to resolve the dispute.

'Our members at ETC have the full weight of the national union behind them. The employer now needs to get around the table and negotiate, otherwise the start of term will be severely disrupted.'

Last updated: 30 August 2024