Staff at Bolton College are on strike this week amid a dispute over pay. The college is one of only eight further education colleges nationally, and the only one in Greater Manchester, where staff walked out after bosses failed to implement pay awards at or above 6.5 percent recommended by employer body, the Association of Colleges.
The three-day strike by the University and College Union (UCU) members, which began on Tuesday, saw staff form a picket line outside the college. Planned strike action at around 35 other similar colleges was called off after members voted to accept deals or were set to ballot on pay offers and national bargaining commitments.
One tutor on the picket line in Bolton was Julie Reid. She is also a Labour councillor, representing Gorton and Abbey Hey on Manchester City Council. She said: “I work at Bolton College teaching two days a week. “It’s the worst paying college in the whole of Greater Manchester. The degradation in pay for college in the last few years has been devastating.
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“I absolutely love the work and the students here, as do the rest of those taking action, but we feel there is a reliance on that dedication and goodwill to our students at the college is at the expense of decent pay.”
UCU general secretary Jo Grady said that Bolton College was one of just a handful of colleges who had not agreed to implement the pay recommendations. She, said: ‘Yet more colleges have stepped up to the plate and agreed to pay college staff fairly for the incredible work they do supporting students.
“So we are now down to just eight hold out bosses who are refusing to make acceptable offers. The picket lines at colleges on strike today are full of members who are furious that college bosses have let them down.
“But they have also been let down by a failed bargaining framework, which allows a small minority of bosses to not settle their disputes. We need binding national bargaining so we can reach binding national agreements.”
Members of the UCU voted to strike last month. The union said that decision came after a survey found that 96 per cent of their members were struggling with low pay.
A spokesperson for Bolton College said that the college remained open and that many classes ran as normal. The college said any students affected by the industrial action would be contacted to let them know.
As a result of the action a young people’s open day at Bolton College has been rescheduled to Thursday, December 14.
