Nothern Ireland further education lecturers balloted on strike | UK News

Unions representing further education lecturers in Northern Ireland are balloting their members on strike action.

The University and College Union (UCU) has claimed its members have been “sold a pup” over a pay deal by the college employers.

The union claimed the employers had failed to close a “pay gap” with school teachers and deal with workloads.

A spokesperson for the College Employers’ Forum (CEF) said they were “fully committed to working with union representatives to advance talks in relation to a new pay proposal”.

Both the NASUWT and UCU, who between them represent the vast majority of further education (FE) lecturers in Northern Ireland, are asking their members to vote on industrial action.

On the ballots, lecturers are asked to vote for strike action and action short of strike.

Teachers in Northern Ireland recently turned down a 5.5% pay offer for 2024/25, saying a failure to deal with increasing workloads was a key reason for rejecting the offer.

They have now begun action short of strike in schools.

Pay for FE lecturers is negotiated separately from that of teachers, but workload has also been cited as a significant concern.

There are six FE colleges in Northern Ireland with more than 63,000 students.

They teach a large range of vocational and academic subjects to a wide variety of students, and are a major part of Northern Ireland’s education system.

But lecturers in FE colleges have often been paid less than teachers in schools.

A pay deal in 2024 averted strikes in FE colleges, and brought pay parity with teachers at some grades.

However, unions have said that parts of that agreement have not been fulfilled and that is why they are balloting members for strike action.

Katharine Clarke, the UCU’s Northern Ireland official, said full pay parity with schoolteachers had not been delivered.

“Ten months on and the employers have failed to progress the parity commitment and all of the non-pay elements of the deal,” she said.

“Our members stood down industrial action to accept the employers’ offer, regrettably it now seems clear they were sold a pup.”

She also accused the college employers of having “no desire to protect their staff from ever increasing workloads”.

The NASUWT national official for Northern Ireland, Justin McCamphill, also said the colleges had failed to deliver on promises made.

“Our members are extremely frustrated that the college employers have not delivered on their promises of last year,” he said.

“Our members were promised an independent examination of the pay, all terms and conditions and workload of academic staff.

“This hasn’t happened and our members are not prepared to wait any longer.

“The NASUWT are calling on the minister for the economy to intervene and force the colleges to honour the promises that they made last year.”

In a statement to News NI, the CEF, which represents the FE college leaders, said they “remain fully committed to working with union representatives to advance talks in relation to a new pay proposal, as well as commitments made regarding workload”.

“The pay proposal is in the context of a very difficult funding landscape for further education,” the organisation said.

“We have written to union representatives to request a meeting as soon as possible.”

They acknowledged that there had been a delay in the work of a group set up to deal with workload issues for staff, but said that they had “again written to union representatives to seek agreement on a date to meet as soon as possible”.

The Department for the Economy (DfE) is the Stormont department responsible for further education colleges.

“Further education colleges are employers in their own right and as such, the department is not directly involved in negotiations with trade unions,” the department said.

“We strongly encourage ongoing engagement and negotiations between further education colleges and trade unions in order to fulfil the commitments of the 2023/24 lecturers pay agreement.”

The UCU ballot runs until the 31 March and the NASUWT ballot until 15 April.