Staff strike at Suffolk New College in pay row

Classes will be cancelled as Suffolk New College is being targeted for action by members of UCU.
 
The ground-breaking national pay deal, thrashed out in 2004, should have a left a mid-ranking further education lecturer earning £4,511 more per annum. The union has described the failure by colleges still to honour the deal as one of the longest IOUs from management to staff in the history of industrial relations.
 
Picket lines will be held outside the college's main entrances on Rope Walk and Back Hamlet from 8am.
 
Jean Nil, who teaches at Suffolk and is a UCU member, said: 'We regret having to take this action, but we think it's unfair that our pay is being kept down. It's only fair that we are paid the same as staff at other colleges and call upon the college to implement the 2004 deal. It will be hard for the college to retain and attract good lecturers if it continues to pay people so badly.'
 
UCU head of further education, Barry Lovejoy, said: 'It's a real shame that things have come to this. The staff are not greedy; they are merely asking for the money they should have been paid four years ago. It is the intransigence of the college that has pushed members' patience too far and forced them into industrial action.'

In 2003-4, a two-year national agreement was drawn up that heralded pay parity for college lecturers with schoolteachers. Thousands of further education lecturers had been unable to reach the higher pay levels enjoyed by schoolteachers, 50% of whom get extra allowances worth between £2,364 and £11,557 per annum on top of their basic earnings. The deal introduced shorter new scales that provided higher salaries for new lecturers and faster progression to the top points.