Strikes have started at a London college group over “intolerable” plans to freeze sixth-form teacher salaries until they equalise with the rest of the group’s lecturers.
About 60 teachers at Capital City College (CCC) sixth-form campus in Angel – formerly known as City and Islington College – walked out on Tuesday, the first of six days of strike action planned to run until Friday, November 17.
The dispute centres around plans to freeze sixth-form teachers’ pay for two to three years until a “discrepancy” between their salaries and the rest of the group’s general FE teaching staff is removed.
While CCC is a general FE college, many of its Angel sixth-form teachers are on more generous legacy sixth-form conditions.
The number of strike days will escalate in the next two weeks.
Next week, teachers will walk out on Friday, then again on Saturday to coincide with a college open day.
Strikes will continue from Wednesday to Friday the following week. About 60 of the staff body of 81 are understood to be taking part in action.
National Education Union (NEU) representatives said staff shared a “widespread concern” about the “sustained attack” on their pay and conditions, arguing that top-of-scale teachers currently received £1,100 less per year than the national sixth-form rate.
Nick Lawson, an NEU representative and teacher at the campus, said the plans to freeze pay were “intolerable” to members, with more than 98 per cent voting in favour of strikes on a turnout of more than 80 per cent.
Teachers on sixth-form contracts, subject to national bargaining, can expect to earn between £32,178 and £49,725 this year.
A CCC spokesperson told FE Week that its management respected the right of teachers and the NEU to strike over the “historic pay issue”.
They added: “Staff pay remains a priority, but any increase must be equitable for all our staff and financially sustainable so we can continue investing in the resources and services we provide for our students.”
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