Strike dates ✊:
Monday 31 July
Tuesday 1 August
Wednesday 2 August
Thursday 3 August
Bring your pun-laden placards and joke-filled banners, and your best chanting voices. Wear Purple and/or Green items of clothing!
👏 Please see the picket locations to join in the map at the bottom of this webpage. You can collect a sign/flag/merch from the trade union office (1d Priory Road Clifton Bristol BS8 1TX) between 8am and 9am on the morning of the strike.
🎏 The UoB Branch needs everyone who is on strike to picket. We have already made SMT re-evaluate their offer, but it isn’t enough. We need to show them that our union is strong and powerful and the only way to do this is by showing collective power.
👬 If this is your first-time picketing, find a friend, striking colleague or union member who you can meet.
✊ It is illegal to discriminate against workers based on any trade union activity, including new members of staff. If you have any concerns about participating in the strike and/or picketing, please speak with your workplace rep.
Please encourage colleagues and students to email senior management in support of our dispute:
Key talking points
- The offer of a 3% pay rise in 2022/23 was a real terms pay cut when inflation is at 11.1% and set to stay high for a while. The current offer of around 5% for most staff remains grossly insufficient to keep up with the cost of living.
- The cost of household bills, rent and mortgages has soared, and pay has not risen in line with these, making staff worse off year on year. These pressures are particularly bad in Bristol compared to many other cities.
- Our pay has not risen in line with inflation since 2009. See how much you have lost out on in this time frame using this pay calculator: https://unison.typeform.com/to/ly6TMmkn
- Some University leaders have admitted that HE staff pay has been neglected in favour of expanding student numbers and new buildings
- UOB senior management cannot achieve the goals of their new strategy if staff are under financial pressure and managing ever increasing workloads.
- Staff and students are the University. The University does not exist in isolation without its’ staff: staff pay needs to be a priority.
- Staff at the University of Bath (our nearest institution with similar academic structures) start on spine point 8. Staff at University of Bristol start on spine point 4.
- UoB on 2 separate occasions recently have had to raise the spine points just to comply with being a living wage employer for those on the lowest grades of pay.
- Local deals are possible within a national dispute – Unison at the University of Glasgow and Unison at the Bath Spa and Edinburgh Napier have in the last 6 months settled for local agreements.
