Manchester University strikes halted 'with immediate effect'

manchestereveningnews.co.uk:

Lecturers at Manchester University will pause planned strike action after receiving a 'proposal' from university bosses. Members of the University of Manchester University and College Union (UMUCU) had scheduled five days of industrial action from Monday (September 25) to Friday (September 29).

It comes after four days of strike action took place last week. Staff walked out today on the first day of the new academic year, but will hold off further planned strikes for the rest of the week after university leaders offered to 'only withhold only 25% of pay' for those staff who participated in last last semester's marking and assessment boycott. READ MORE: Greater Manchester's new Bee Network - bus fares, the app, what will change and what you need to know from today READ MORE: Greater Manchester's oldest family bakery announces permanent closure Dr Gill said the industrial action is about 'sustaining a better future' for academics and students. "Our students, wherever they are in society, will inherit the situation that we accept now," he said. "So it is incumbent on trade unionists to protect what people have now for the future." Dr Gill criticised what he called UoM's 'punitive' pay deductions over the marking and assessment boycott, which was called off two weeks ago, and said they were 'not proportionate' to the withdrawal of labour.

The university's proposal would see staff's pay docked 25 per cent for participation in the boycott. "As it stands, some of our members could be left four or five figures out of pocket for refusing to mark 20 to 100 scripts," he added.

The strike has hit students at the start of the new academic year - but Dr Gill said there is 'never a good time' to go on strike. "There isn't a good