Union members have overwhelmingly voted to strike over London South Bank University’s plan to split its academic workforce into two “career pathways”.
Eighty-nine per cent of University and College Union (UCU) members backed strike action in a ballot, while 97 per cent supported action short of a strike – which could include a marking boycott, with the potential to disrupt graduations – on a turnout of 61 per cent.
The vote was called after LSBU announced plans to move many of its existing academics into a new “teaching and scholarship” role, with only some being kept in a “teaching and research” position.
UCU claimed that staff would have to compete against each other in a redundancy selection process and said that the new contracts would “increase working time without any corresponding increase in pay”.
LSBU also plans to employ new staff via a subsidiary firm, denying them access to the Teachers’ Pension Scheme, amid ongoing concerns about its affordability for employers.
