LECTURERS at more than 30 universities staged the last of five days of strike action today. 

Many marked the event with rallies backed by trade union councils and other unions.

At some universities, members of unions Unison and Unite took strike action in their own disputes and picketed alongside members of the University and College Union (UCU).

UCU will now continue with action short of a strike in its long-running dispute over pay, workloads and working conditions.

The lecturers have been in dispute for more than a year. Issues include pay gaps relating to gender, ethnicity and disability; casualisation and insecure work; unsafe workloads and falling pay.

Higher education is Britain’s worst employment sector for short-term contracts, with almost half of the teaching workforce having single term or one-year contracts.

In Leeds, lecturers were joined by striking Unison and Unite members for a rally on the steps of Leeds University’s iconic Parkinson building.

They were supported by Leeds and Wakefield Trade Union Council and Unite Community’s Leeds and Wakefield branches.

Vicky Blake is secretary of Leeds University’s UCU branch, member of UCU’s national executive and a former national president of UCU.

“We have been out on strike for a week and it has been quite an intense week to start the academic year,” she said.

“Our pay has fallen far, far behind and that has accelerated with inflation. But it had already fallen.”

The lecturers are balloting on a further six months of industrial action. UCU’s current mandate expires in October under government anti-strike legislation.