Strikes Likely to Hit Freshers’ Week
The Association of University Teachers – the AUT – are planning two days of strike action during freshers’ week in October, over the continuing issue of London weighting.
This is likely to be backed up by a strike by UNISON, and possibly unions that represent university staff. One result of this is likely to be the cancellation of lectures, as happened to a limited extent during the strike action during the last academic year. A second, and possibly more significant, impact of this is that it will hit registration. Registry is always overstretched during this period, and strike action could cause the process to be come to a complete standstill. Mustafa Arif, ICU president, thought that the impact would be minimal, saying ‘With the trades unions’ track record in getting Imperial staff out to strike, I’d be very impressed if they actually managed to get noticed by students.’
London weighting is the extra money given to staff working in London to allow for the extra expenses incurred by living in London, and takes the form of a fixed amount added to the annual salary. This amount sits at £2,134, and has not been changed for the last eleven years, and is far below that given to any other public sector workers.
Peter Mitchell, the Assistant general secretary of the AUT said to Felix that the strike action was a last resort that the union was taking very reluctantly and felt that they had been forced into it after the lack of action and string of broken promises from Universities throughout London over the past eleven years.
Student unions throughout London look likely to support this action, despite the fact that it is likely to adversely affect students in the short term. Chris Piper, the ULU president came out in support of the strike action, stating that London Weighting was ‘pitiful’, and that this state of affairs was likely to drive the best academics away. He qualified this by making clear that he wanted to ensure that the strike action should be timed to minimise the impact on student union activities. This statement was supported by union officers throughout .
This action has not been finalised, and the door has been left open for universities to table an offer to the AUT to end this dispute, but this seems unlikely given the lack of real action over the past eleven years.
