2024-25

April 2025 update 2

Following broken promises by the Minister for the Economy, and the employers' inaction over workload, lecturers in Northern Ireland further education colleges voted for industrial action. In a resounding result 98% voted for ASOS and 90% for strike action. ASOS will begin from Friday 11 April to include the following:

• Withholding assessment and exam marks from College systems and Awarding Bodies (EBS Markbook, Canvas or Other). Assessment and feedback to students will continue but marks will not be entered onto college systems or provided to Awarding Bodies
• Withdrawal of goodwill
• Working to contract
• No overtime
• Refusal to engage in Additional Duties outside of those quantified in the agreed programme of work and/or local agreement
• Continuous non-cooperation with ETI inspections
• Continuous non-use of the EBS system, registers will be maintained in other formats.

Click here for FAQs on Northern Ireland FE colleges' industrial action.

April 2025 update 1

Staff at all six further education colleges across Northern Ireland have voted to take industrial action for fair pay, UCU has announced.

Belfast Metropolitan College, Northern Regional College, North West Regional College, Southern Regional College, South Eastern Regional College and South West College educate more than 63,000 students between them.

The ballot was open for three weeks and was conducted via Royal Mail with 90% voting in favour of strike action, and 98.5% voting in favour of action short of a strike (ASOS), with a 49% turnout.

The vote for action comes after the six college employers failed to protect staff from excessive workloads and the Minister for the Economy refused to honour a pay parity commitment with schoolteacher salaries.

February 2025

UCU has declared a formal trade dispute with all six college employers after they failed to honour the terms offered to members in the 2023-24 pay settlement. A commitment to achieving full pay parity with schoolteachers, as well as an agreement to address all terms and conditions and workload of academic staff, has been reneged on. The employers have failed to respond to union correspondence and requests for meetings. Notice of intention to ballot will quickly follow.

2023-24

April 2024 update 2

After taking 16 days of strike action Northern Ireland further education lecturers have won a huge pay uplift worth around 11.2%.

The full pay deal:

• 8.4% backdated to September 2023 + £1k consolidated (equivalent to 11.2%)
• lecturer starting salary uplifted to £30k

UCU members overwhelmingly voted to accept the deal, which brings an end to sustained industrial action by lecturers, who have been working to rule for the past four years and began withholding marks in January. The Department for the Economy has also committed to an independent examination of pay and conditions to ensure parity with school teachers.

April 2024 update

UCU members at all six of Northern Ireland's further education colleges are currently being consulted via an electronic ballot on a revised offer from the Minister for the Economy. The offer proposes a starting salary of £30k, a 8.4% increase plus £1k on all salary points, a commitment to move towards pay parity with schoolteachers and a review of workload. UCU is recommending acceptance of the offer. The electronic ballot will close at noon on Tuesday 16 April 2024.

March 2024 update 2

UCU members at all six of Northern Ireland's further education colleges have been consulted via an electronic ballot on the offer made by the Department for the Economy (DfE), which is 5% plus a non-consolidated payment of £1,500 pro rata.  

The electronic ballot closed earlier this week and almost 96% of those who voted rejected the offer. The union will be meeting college employers again next week; click here for coverage on BBC News Northern Ireland.

March 2024 update

After four years in dispute about Northern Ireland FE lecturer pay, terms and conditions, an offer for academic year 2023-24 has been made by the Department for the Economy (DfE) in Northern Ireland. The offer of 5% plus a non-consolidated payment of £1,500 pro rata is conditional upon all industrial action being stood down.

UCU members at all six of Northern Ireland's FE colleges are currently being consulted via an electronic ballot on this offer. The electronic ballot opened on Tuesday 12 March 2024 and will close on Tuesday 19 March 2024 (10:00am). 

The elected representatives on UCU's further education committee (FEC) is recommending members reject the offer. Previous imposed offers of 1% (2021-22, 2022-23) are below pay awards made to other public sector workers. The UCU FEC is calling upon members to implement the action of withholding marks to force an improved offer from government.

Click here for coverage on BBC News Northern Ireland (dated 12 March 2024), with comment from UCU's Northern Ireland official Katharine Clarke.

2022-23

January 2024 update 2

Staff at all six of Northern Ireland's further education colleges took part in strike action on Thursday 18 January. UCU was striking alongside workers across Northern Ireland in a generalised day of action called by the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU).

UCU general secretary Jo Grady visited the picket line at Southern Regional College in Newry and spoke at the ICTU strike rally at Belfast City Hall. The walkout was the latest escalation in a long-running pay dispute that saw staff take action repeatedly since September 2023. Further education lecturers had seen a real-terms pay cut of 25% since 2015. The ICTU is demanding the restoration of Stormont, and for the UK government to release the monies it has available to settle NI public sector pay disputes.

January 2024 update 1

UCU's further education committee (FEC) took the decision to call all FE lecturers in Northern Ireland out on a one-day strike on Thursday 18 January 2024. The Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) has called this action to coincide with the now abandoned deadline for the Northern Ireland Assembly election and the date issued by the Secretary of State for the restoration of Stormont with £3.3bn funding package. Money has been earmarked to settle the outstanding pay disputes in the public sector should the Executive return. 

UCU general secretary Jo Grady will visit Northern Ireland on Thursday 18 January, and will visit picket lines and speak at the ICTU rally in Belfast. Click here for a statement from Gerry Murphy, ICTU's assistant general secretary, on the importance of public sector unions taking action.

October 2023 update 2

As action short of a strike (ASOS) and rolling action continues in the six further education colleges in Northern Ireland, the employers are feeling the effects. In a message to all staff yesterday, the CEO of Southern Regional College reported 'a recent review has identified that 4000+ registers are not complete for the 2023-24 academic year'. This shows the effectiveness of UCU's action and the pressure it is creating within the system. It is important members continue to abide by the union's instruction to create the maximum leverage possible to win this dispute.

October 2023 update 1

As strike action and action short of a strike (ASOS) continue in all six colleges in Northern Ireland, UCU's campaign message is being heard and adopted by the Northern Ireland's political parties. You can read statements of support from Sinn Féin, The Alliance Party of Northern Ireland (APNI) and the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP). The Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) also confirmed that it wrote to the Department for the Economy permanent secretary expressing concern for the plight of lecturer staff.

September 2023 update 2

Staff at all six further education colleges across Northern Ireland will strike for five days (Monday 18 to Friday 22 September 2023) in a long-running dispute over pay and working conditions. Thereafter, each college will take one day of strike action once every six days for the next three months.

UCU said it has been forced to take action after a decade of their members being subject to pay freeze, followed by pay restraint, which has seen lecturer pay awards limited to between 1 % and 2% per year. Click here for the full update.

September 2023 update 1

After the imposition of 1% awards for the last two years, continuing the treatment of Northern Ireland lecturers as the poor relations of the education sector, UCU has today notified all six college employers of widespread escalation of industrial action.

We are asking Northern Ireland FE members to tune into a live broadcast with general secretary Jo Grady and president-elect and national FEC chair Maxine Looby, on Monday 11 September 2023 at 12:45 as they set out the next steps in UCU's campaign for a fair deal for Northern Ireland lecturers. The broadcast will be recorded and available for viewing during and after the event: Facebook, YouTube and Twitter.

June 2023

More than 1,700 lecturers in FE colleges in Northern Ireland have been told they will not receive a £3,000 one-off payment they had expected. UCU said the damage to industrial relations was 'immeasurable'. The employers in the six FE colleges said the Department for Economy (DfE) would not approve the payment without agreement on a wider pay deal. Click here for the report in BBC News NI which includes a response from UCU Northern Ireland official Katherine Clarke.

April 2023

UCU and NASUWT, which represent FE lecturers in Northern Ireland, have rejected a derisory pay offer of 1% for 2021-22 and 1% for 2022-23 (BBC News NI, 24 April 2023).

February 2023

In response to lecturers not yet receiving payment for the 2021/22 pay award, coupled with a failure by DfE to allocate college budgets, the Northern Ireland further education committee (FEC) took the decision to escalated action short of strike (ASOS) in the ongoing dispute about pay and workload. From the week of Monday 20 February 2023, members have been instructed not to co-operate with Education Training Inspectorate (ETI) inspection, to maintain registers in Excel or paper format rather than input to the EBS system, and to refuse co-operation with the DfE's FE Review until such time the department allocates a budget to the employers enabling resolution of the lecturer pay dispute. Authority has also been granted by the national officers for further escalation should such become necessary.

January 2023

The Northern Ireland further education committee (FEC) voted unanimously before Christmas 2022 to escalate the industrial action campaign regarding pay and workload. Corporate staff have received an acceptable pay award while not so much as an offer has been made to FE lecturers in Northern Ireland.

FEC are asking members to complete a survey, which has already been sent to Northern Ireland FE members, regarding forms of action short of a strike (ASOS) and level of strike action.

August 2022

The negotiations are still ongoing and UCU Northern Ireland is expecting to be in the position to issue an update to the Northern Ireland FE membership towards the end of 2022.

March 2022

After delay at government level progressing the Northern Ireland FE pay agreement, UCU wrote to the Minister for the Economy and Minister of Finance threatening an escalation of industrial action if payment was not made in the March salary. The matter has now been resolved and negotiations for the 2021/22 salary round will resume. Members continue in ASOS while negotiators press for pay parity with schoolteachers.

Preamble

Agreement has been reached with the employers for lecturers to receive 2+2% pay increase for years 2019/20 and 2020/21. UCU previously rejected an offer of 7% payable over 4 years which came with a number of unacceptable strings attached in the form of regressive contractual change. This offer equates to 4% over two years with no preconditions. While this is a considerable improvement, there is still a long way to go to close the pay gap with schoolteachers and university lecturers. Action short of a strike (ASOS) remains in place but the trade unions have given a commitment not to escalate industrial action to allow fresh talks to commence in 2022. Members will continue to work to their contract but no work will be done in excess of it.

2021-22 pay

After delay at government level progressing the Northern Ireland FE pay agreement, UCU wrote to the Minister for the Economy and Minister of Finance threatening an escalation of industrial action if payment was not made in the March salary.

The matter has now been resolved and negotiations for the 21/22 salary round will resume. Members while negotiators press for pay parity with schoolteachers.

2020-21 dispute

The Northern Ireland FE employers advised in February 2021 that the most they could offer for a pay increase without additional funding from government is 7% over four years. As a consequence, UCU  declared a formal trade dispute with the minister for the economy [191kb].

The school teacher pay award took their pay increase from 2013/14 to the present to 11.25%. By contrast FE lecturers have received 3.8% over the same period.

Following strike action on 24 March at all six colleges UCU members are now undertaking a campaign of continuous 'action short of strike' in an effort to resolve the dispute. This will see UCU members only working to contracted hours, refusing to work overtime, and boycotting any additional duties.

In January 2022 it was announced that an agreement had been reached with the employers for lecturers to receive 2+2% pay increase for years 2019/20 and 2020/21. UCU's previously rejected offer of 7% payable over four years came with a number of unacceptable strings attached in the form of regressive contractual change. This offer equates to 4% over two years with no preconditions.

While this is a considerable improvement, there is still a long way to go to close the pay gap with schoolteachers and university lecturers. ASOS will remain in place but the trade unions have given a commitment not to escalate industrial action to allow fresh talks to commence in 2022. Members will continue to work to their contract but no work will be done in excess of it.

In November 2020, Emma Sherrin MLA had questioned minister Dodds about lecturers' struggle for fair pay and working conditions.

UCU originally declared a dispute about pay and working conditions in all six of Northern Ireland's FE colleges in October 2020 following an attempt by employers to blackmail staff into giving up workload protections and trade union agreements. Read Jo Grady's letter to members here.