East Lancashire college lecturers set to go on strike (From Lancashire Telegraph)

East Lancashire college lecturers set to go on strike

1:36pm Thursday 17th March 2011 in Hyndburn By Tom Moseley, Reporter

STUDENTS across East Lancashire are facing disruption when their lecturers go on strike next week.

The University and College Union (UCU) is staging a walkout on Thursday, March 24, in a row over changes to pension schemes.

The action will affect Blackburn, Burnley, Pendle and Accrington and Rossendale Colleges.

It is not yet known how many lecturers will heed the “call to action”, but the union said it had at least 50 per cent membership at each institution.

The Employers Pension Forum (EPF), which is in charge of implementing changes to the pension schemes, said the strike action was ‘damaging’.

But the students’ union at the University of Central Lancashire, which runs a campus at Burnley College, said it supported the action providing everything ‘humanely possible’ was done to minimise the impact on students.

Lynn Collins, UCU regional officer for the North West, said the EPF had refused an offer of conciliatory talks.

She said “We have had great support from the students. They understand what the issues are, because they are facing similar attacks. They know the climate we are working in.”

Michael Palmer, the president of the students’ union at UCLAN, said: “The Students’ Union supports UCU and its members who look to take strike action on the basis that everything that is humanly possible is done to ensure the negative impact on students’ education is minimised.”

The dispute centres on the Universities Superannuation Scheme, which the union says will reduce pension benefits and increase costs.