THE University of Reading will be hit with 14 days of strike action in February and March, the University and College Union (UCU) announced this week (Monday, February 3).

The action will start on Thursday, February 20, and escalate each week, culminating with a week-long walkout from Monday 9 to Friday, March 13.

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The union explained disputes centre on the sustainability of the Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS) and rising costs for members, and on universities’ failure to make significant improvements on pay, equality, casualisation and workloads.

The full strike dates are:

Week one - Thursday, February 20 & Friday, February 21

Week two – Monday, February 24, Tuesday, February 25 & Wednesday, February 26

Week three – Monday, March 2, Tuesday, March 3, Wednesday, March 4 & Thursday, March 5

Week four - Monday, March 9, Tuesday, March 10, Wednesday, March 11, Thursday, March 12 & Friday, March 13

UCU members at Reading were among staff at 60 universities who walked out for eight days of strikes before Christmas.

They will be joined in February by staff at another 14 institutions, as more UCU branches crossed a 50 per cent turnout threshold required by law for them to take industrial action.

The union also warned it would ballot members after this wave of strikes, if the disputes could not be resolved, to ensure branches could take action until the end of the academic year.

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Strike mandates are only legally valid for six months, so branches who walked out in November would need to secure a fresh mandate to be able to continue to take action after April.

As well as the strike days, union members are undertaking “action short of a strike”. This involves things like working strictly to contract, not covering for absent colleagues and refusing to reschedule lectures lost to strike action.

UCU general secretary Jo Grady said: "If universities want to avoid further disruption they need to deal with rising pension costs, and address the problems over pay and conditions.

"We have been clear from the outset that we would take serious and sustained industrial action if that was what was needed.

"As well as the strikes later this month, we are going to ballot members to ensure that we have a fresh mandate for action to continue until the end of the academic year if these disputes are not resolved."

A University of Reading spokesperson added: “The announcement of further strike action is disappointing, especially as discussions between UCU and national employer representatives are continuing.

"Our priority is to support our whole community of students and staff, and we will work to keep any disruption to a minimum.

“We expect that the vast majority of scheduled classes will proceed as normal and University facilities will remain open.

"We will be regularly updating students, staff and the local community as the industrial action progresses.”