4 days of strikes begin tomorrow at Imperial College London over real terms pay cuts

• Management misled staff over benchmarking used to justify pay levels whilst pushing ahead with £2bn of capital spending 
• Management offered more   leave on full pay to fathers' than to mothers, then took back the additional leave out of shared parental leave 
• Further strike action called for 1 - 12 December if management refuses to return to negotiations 

The full strike days this week are from Tuesday 25 - Friday 28 November and pickets will take place on each day of the action at the South Kensington and White City campuses from 8.30am until 10.30am. 

If management continues to refuse to make a fair offer, the union has also called strike action on the following dates: 

• Monday 1 - Friday 5 December  
• Monday 8 - Friday 12 December 

UCU members have already taken six days of strike action this term over management's refusal to increase its below-inflation 2% pay award, an offer that was rejected overwhelmingly by members of all three recognised unions (UCU, Unison and Unite).  

Imperial College is one of the wealthiest universities in the country and is rolling out plans for a £2bn capital spending project.  Imperial has already admitted it justified its original pay offer on the basis of miscalculated figures but claimed that even with the right numbers, pay was still above its salary benchmarks.  

Imperial has revealed that management were willing for the conclusions of an earlier review of these benchmarks to be misrepresented. While this review had recommended that the benchmarking be significantly uplifted, this was reworded to claim that the review had concluded the opposite: that "the benchmarks used for all job families... were appropriate". 

During negotiations, management offered to increase the period of time staff would receive enhanced paternity pay. When unions pointed out it would mean fathers would get more   leave on full pay than mothers and that maternity pay should therefore also be increased, Imperial reacted by reducing shared parental leave for fathers in order to level down. 

UCU general secretary Jo Grady said: 'Imperial staff will once again down tools this week because they refuse to accept a real-terms pay cut while university management freely spends billions of pounds elsewhere.  

'The mistakes Imperial management is making, to avoid giving staff what they deserve, will have serious consequences. The Provost must stop misrepresenting a salary review, which clearly concluded that pay needs to rise, as a reason to suppress wages and return to the negotiating table with a meaningful offer.' 

President of Imperial UCU, Vijay Tymms said: 'Members are furious that after first failing to check their calculations, we now find senior management has behaved in such an underhand way. When this review was first announced, we were told that our input would "help shape the principles to inform our decisions". Nobody thought those decisions would include rewriting the recommendations of the review'