College lecturers and support staff seek significant pay increase

A joint pay claim has been submitted by college unions UCU, GMB, T&G, UNISON, ACM and ATL seeking a significant increase on all scales in 2007.

Lecturers want an increase in excess of the rate of inflation and full parity with school teachers - who currently earn around 6.3% more than college lecturers doing equivalent work.

The pay claim also seeks improvements for staff in holidays, a maximum 35 hour week, entitlement to 30 hours of paid annual professional training and agreement to commence negotiations on workloads

UCU's head of further education Barry Lovejoy said: 'Recent pay settlements have made some progress towards pay parity with school teachers, which demonstrates the benefits of national pay bargaining. However, the remaining pay gap must be bridged and bargaining procedures must be strengthened. We need an agreed joint strategy with employers to ensure the implementation of modernised pay arrangements in all colleges.  It is not acceptable that lecturers continue to earn more than 6% less than schoolteachers.'

Christine Lewis, UNISON national official said: 'Progress has been made on the minimum wage but we need to push for sector-wide job evaluation to avoid overuse of low pay points and to achieve fair and equal pay. Support staff are also greatly concerned by conditions of service issues which are often a compensation for modestly-paid jobs. We believe that there should be sector standards on the working week and annual leave and vitally important entitlements such as a right to training.'