The University and College Union (UCU) has announced that staff at all six further education colleges will go on strike for five days next week and continuously for the next three months in a long-running dispute over pay and working conditions.
The UCU NWRC Branch will join the action and has announced the strike will begin Monday morning at the NWRC gates on Strand Road.
People Before Profit Cllr Shaun Harkin said,
“Our further education lecturers are going above and beyond as educators. They have seen both their pay and working conditions slashed but their workload increase.
It’s the same old story, the abject failure of the government to adequately fund our education system has driven these workers to the point of exhaustion. They are asked to do the work of several people for less pay.
Students, over many years, are very positive about their experience at the North West Regional College – and this is down to the efforts of lecturers there.
The ‘Tech’ is a key institution in the city and the north west. It needs to be properly resourced and workers need to paid properly and valued properly.
The disruption to classes at all six of the further education colleges across the North is entirely the fault of employers.
It’s time for fair pay and an end to years of pay degradation. We need to transfer wealth away from billionaires and corporations posting record profits to those who are actually making our society function day in and day out.
People Before Profit urge everyone, including past and present students, to stand with the lecturers and the University and College Union (UCU) branch on Monday at the entrance to NWRC on the Strand Road.”
