Lecturers and other academic staff members will walk out on strike on Monday November 25th.

Academic staff at 60 universities will take part in the industrial action. The strike will last until December 4th but, after returning to work, staff will only work strictly to contract, refusing to reschedule lectures that fell during the strike or to cover for colleagues.

The Birmingham branch of University College Union (UCU), the higher education trade union, voted overwhelmingly in favour of strike action in two ballots, one over pensions and one over pay, equality, workload, and casualisation.

UCU represents lecturers, researchers, library, and other academic staff at universities, including those employed on casual contracts.

Both ballots comfortably exceeded the 50% turnout threshold required by the 2012 Trade Union Act. 82% voted in favour of strike action over pensions, while 77% voted in favour of strike action over pay, equality, workload, and casualisation.

Nationally, 79% of members voted in favour of the strike over pensions, while 74% backed the strike over pay and other issues. The pension ballot met the 50% threshold in 43 branches, while the ballot over pay and other issues met this in 56 branches.

The pensions dispute is over the size of member contributions into the Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS), the scheme for academics’ pensions. UCU wants this capped at 8% of a member’s salary, rather than the proposed 9.6%.

In 2018, 64 universities and over one million students were affected by 14 days of strike action over changes to USS. UCU successfully defended against those changes, which would have seen it switch from defined benefit to defined contribution.

Defined benefit pension schemes guarantee a specific amount upon an employee’s retirement but carry greater investment risk for the employer. Staff at UoB did not strike as the ballot failed to reach the 50% turnout threshold.

UCU said that they found it frustrating to ballot members again but that they had no choice, claiming that universities had not acted on their concerns.

Redbrick reached out to UoB but did not receive a response.