Alliance backs College pay fight

Lecturers at Oxford College of Further Education will be out on the picket lines again on May 22, in support of the national pay campaign being mounted by their union NATFHE.

A national ballot produced a near 2-1 majority for strike action, while anger at Oxford College has been compounded by the refusal of the College’s Governing Body to honour the national pay agreement for the last financial year (2000-01

Instead of a 3% increase, pay levels in Oxford have been frozen, widening the pay gap between lecturers and school teachers, who are paid up to £3,000 a year more. It was in protest against this pay freeze that Oxford College staff staged a local one-day stoppage, which halted lessons on April 3.

Staff have been further antagonised by threatened redundancies and by the intervention by College management to prevent unions at Oxpens calling a lunchtime pre-election Hustings meeting open to all candidates.

John Lister, himself a part-time lecturer at Oxford College, said:

"Although the ballot and the strike relate only to full-time staff, the pay freeze affects all lecturing staff at the college. The national increase of 3% was low enough – but not even getting that is an insult to hard-working staff, many of whom are under intense pressure.

"In schools it has been widely recognised that low pay makes it hard to recruit and retain staff and brings down morale. It is obvious that demoralised, over-worked teachers are less likely to deliver quality lessons for their students.

"The same is true in further education. Why should college lecturers, who have a key role to play in tackling problems of social exclusion and delivering the government’s promise of "Life Long Learning", be singled out for rock-bottom pay?