Students and lecturers laugh together at the Kingston UCU picket line
Feature image: Naomi Aldridge
This week the University and College Union (UCU) confirmed it would be reballoting 70,000 members for more industrial action for the academic year.
The union is continuing its negotiations for better pay, better workloads, pay gap equality and less casualisation within the workplace.
Kingston University lecturer Martin Dines said: “So many of us are overworked.”
“So many of us are feeling worn down and overburdened by work because we don’t have a work-life balance.”
The union has led six days of strike action so far with a further ten days coming in the rest of the month.
Ballot papers are to arrive on doorsteps on February 22 after the notice was served to members of the union.
Dines said: “We feel stronger when we have support from our students.”
“I’ve certainly had that from my students and it’s great, you know, they visit us here on the picket line.”
Students can be seen on the picket lines across the country with their lecturers as UCU demands not only better conditions for their members in the workplace, but in return, better education for students.
Negotiations with the Universities and College Employers Association (UCEA) are taking place over the week, being led by General Secretary of the UCU, Jo Grady.
Grady said: “Our union is determined to reach a negotiated settlement which allows staff to get back to work and students to continue their studies uninterrupted.”
The UCU are urging vice-chancellors to ‘come out of hiding’ as the communications between the union and UCEA continue.
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