Falmouth University staff strike announced

A three-day staff strike has been announced at a university over new employment arrangements.

The University and College Union (UCU) said it was unhappy with Falmouth University's decision to employ new academics through a subsidiary company.

It announced on Tuesday that members will take industrial action from Monday 17 until Wednesday 19 October.

The university said it was "deeply disappointed" by the action and hoped "disruption will be manageable".

UCU said 90% of members who voted said yes to strike action "to protect hard-won terms and conditions for all academic staff at the university and push back against a two-tier workforce".

The union claimed that employing staff under Falmouth Staffing Ltd (FSL) was a threat to national bargaining arrangements between unions and the University and Colleges Employers Association (UCEA), and was "the beginning of an attack on hard-won national agreements".

They said the "fragmentation" had already affected new academic staff employed since September 2021, "forcing them onto a vastly inferior private pension".

Falmouth UCU branch co-chair Tom Scott said: "Our members are not taking industrial action lightly, but this is a serious issue not just for staff at Falmouth but also for our students.

"If management insists on employing staff under inferior conditions to those offered at other universities, and without the benefits that continuity of service offers academics elsewhere, this will quickly impact on the university's ability to hire and retain the most talented lecturers and researchers," he said.

He added: "It's not too late to avoid a strike, and we hope that management will think again."

The university said in a statement that it "must take steps to protect Falmouth's financial future, the student experience and financial security for all our employees" amid "challenging economic conditions".

New pension arrangements for new joiners were "highly competitive", it said.

It said: "We are deeply disappointed that this action has been declared while the university was still in communication with the UCU and working to find a resolution.

"We hope that the disruption will be manageable and that our students' academic experience will not be severely affected."

Follow BBC News South West on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Send your story ideas to [email protected]