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Anger at UCU after strike action paused
Lucy Arnold-Forster News Reporter
The UCU has decided to pause strike action for the next two weeks in light of ‘significant progress’ that has been made in negotiations over pensions, pay and casualisation.
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This means that the strikes that were due to take place on the 21, 22, 23, 27 and 28 February and 1 and 2 March have been called off, but the strike days later in March are still scheduled to take place.
However, some staff have expressed concerns with the decision to suspend the strikes, citing a lack of transparency in the UCU decision making process, and concerns with the justifications the UCU has provided for its decision.
The UCU website states that it has made significant progress in negotiations on pay, casualisation and pensions.
However, this is not a unanimous feeling. the Manchester Branch of the UCU is against the suspension of strikes: 72% voted for a motion that is “highly critical of the suspension of action.”
Dr Molly Geidel, vice-chair of the UCU, told The Mancunion that
“the result is definitely a privileging of permanent staff over temporary ones”.
She believes that suspending the strikes “shows a level of trust in these governing bodies [...] that’s completely unsupported by their previous actions.”
She noted that “many universities in the dispute are not even in the USS pension scheme”, and so would not benefit from “the restoration of the USS pensions”.
Davide Pala, a PhD student and teaching assistant at the University of Manchester who has been participating in the strikes, said that he sees a generational issue in the latest UCU decision.
He argues that while concrete progress has been made on the pensions dispute, the progress made on pay and casualisation is or more precarious workers, many of whom may not have a concrete pension.
He suggests the UCU decision reflects a win for older or more senior staff, but not for younger
Another senior lecturer at the University, who wishes to remain anonymous, agrees that there is a generational issue, because
