Unison members at Glasgow Caledonian University were out in force today on the first of four days of strike action in favour of better pay.

Under the banner of rising together for better pay, the staff, whose roles cover administration, library staff, student support, IT, maintenance, cleaning, catering, security and more, were determined to make their voice heard and their views seen by students on their first day of freshers week at GCU.

Why Unison are striking:

• Members demanded a consolidated rise of £4000 or RPI plus 2% for all higher education staff
• We are in a low pay crisis – the cost of living crisis continues to impact staff in HE
• We have had over a decade of real-terms pay cuts
• Pay in HE hasn’t kept up with inflation and hasn’t over the last decade
• Pay is going down but workloads are going up
• We are expected to work more and more for less and less
• We want a properly funded HE sector, accessible to students which doesn’t create a lifetime of debt
• By delivering decent staff pay, you deliver a better experience for students

The union point out that without equality the low pay crisis will not be solved, and that Unison continues to speak up for the needs of women, Black and low paid workers, and fights all forms of discrimination and inequality.

Here’s Davena Rankin, Branch Secretary of Unison@GCU explaining why the branch is on strike

On Friday members of UCU, who were on strike for 19 days over the last trimester, and who have just finished a long running Marking and Assessment boycott in favour of the joint trade unions dispute (UCU, EIS, Unison and Unite) agreed at a mass meeting of the branch to suspend their own strike actions this week, in an effort to encourage local management to take further current talks about a possible uplift to the pay scale for all staff at GCU.

They have asked local management (who have adopted a position of urging the UK managment team in UCEA to return to the negotiating table) to further re-consider their position and implement a local uplift to pay scales, plus set a date for urgent talks on workload and casualisation, the non-pay elements of the current ‘Four Fights’ campaign, UCU has been involved in.

Meanwhile the UCU reballot to allow a new mandate for industrial action launches on Wednesday 20th September.