USS strikes force cancellation of Southampton science and engineering event
15 February 2018
The University of Southampton's Science and Engineering Day has been cancelled because of staff taking strike action in a row over pensions.
Organisers said the event, scheduled for Saturday 10 March, would have to be pulled as UCU members at Southampton prepare to take industrial over the next four weeks. The union said the cancellation of the event, which 10,000 were expected to attend, was a huge disappointment, but that the blame lay squarely with university leaders.
UCU members will be taking 14 days of escalating strike action from Thursday 22 February and working to contract, which means not undertaking voluntary duties. UCU said the cancellation of the event demonstrated just how much universities rely on the goodwill of staff.
The dispute centres on universities' proposals to slash the benefits of the Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS) pension scheme. UCU says this would leave a typical lecturer almost £10,000 a year worse off in retirement than under the current set-up.
The universities' representatives - Universities UK (UUK) - are seeking to push through the changes and have refused to negotiate with UCU. The union says this has left it with no alternative but to strike. UCU is asking students to get their vice-chancellors to put pressure on UUK to return to the negotiating table.
In the recent strike ballot UCU members overwhelmingly backed industrial action. Overall, 88% of members who voted backed strike action. The turnout was 58%. At Southampton 88% backed strike action on a turnout of 67%. The news comes days after former shadow education secretary Lucy Powell MP pulled out of a lecture at the University of Manchester that clashed with the first day of the strikes.
University of Southampton UCU rep Catherine Pope said: 'It is incredibly disappointing that this event has had to be cancelled. This is yet another disruption to university life which could be avoided if the universities' representatives listened to the many voices urging them to come back to the negotiating table.
'Nobody wants to take strike action, but staff at Southampton feel they have been left with no choice. These hardline proposals would slash pensions and are simply uncalled for. Sir Christopher Snowden, the vice-chancellor of Southampton, should publicly call for Universities UK to commit to meaningful negotiations to try and get this dispute sorted out.'
UCU members at Southampton, and 61 other universities*, will walk out on Thursday 22 February as part of an escalating programme of strikes over a four-week period. The strike dates are:
- Week one - Thursday 22 and Friday 23 February (two days)
- Week two - Monday 26, Tuesday 27 and Wednesday 28 February (three days)
- Week three - Monday 5, Tuesday 6, Wednesday 7 and Thursday 8 March (four days)
- Week four - Monday 12, Tuesday 13, Wednesday 14, Thursday 15 and Friday 16 March (five days)
* Universities affected by strike action
Aberdeen, University of |
Aberystwyth University |
Aston University |
Bangor University |
Bath, University of |
Birkbeck College, University of London |
Bristol, University of |
Brunel University |
Cambridge, University of |
Cardiff University |
City, University of London |
Courtauld Institute of Art |
Cranfield University |
Dundee, University of |
Durham University |
East Anglia, University of |
Edinburgh, University of |
Essex, University of |
Exeter, University of |
Glasgow, University of |
Goldsmiths, University of London |
Heriot-Watt University |
Hull, University of |
Imperial College London |
Institute of Education |
Keele University |
Kent, University of |
King's College London |
Lancaster, University of |
Leeds, University of |
Leicester, University of |
Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine |
Liverpool, University of |
London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine |
Loughborough University |
Manchester, University of |
Newcastle University |
Nottingham, University of |
Open University |
Oxford, University of |
Queen Mary, University of London |
Queen's University Belfast |
Reading, University of |
Royal Holloway, University of London |
Royal Veterinary College, University of London |
Salford, University of |
Senate House, University of London |
Sheffield, University of |
SOAS, University of London |
Southampton, University of |
St Andrews, University of |
Stirling, University of |
Strathclyde, University of |
Surrey, University of |
Sussex, University of |
University College London |
Scottish Association for Marine Science at University of the Highlands and Islands |
Ulster University |
University of Wales |
University of Warwick |
University of York |
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