THIRTEEN Scottish universities are to be hit with 14 days of strike action in a dispute over pay, equality, workload and pension costs.
The University and College Union (UCU) has said the stoppages will begin on February 20 and continue to March 13.
It comes after tens of thousands of workers took part in eight days of strike action at 60 universities during November and December last year.
READ MORE: Scottish university bosses branded 'out of touch' over soaring principal salaries
The union says the length of the walkouts will escalate over four weeks and that they will run fresh ballots to allow more strikes if their various disputes are not resolved.
The 13 Scottish institutions which included the University of Edinburgh and the University of Glasgow will join 48 other universities across the UK.
The action will culminate in a week-long walkout from March 9 to March 13. The union says that the 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 union said the decision to ballot members after this wave of strikes, if the disputes could not be resolved, was to "ensure branches could take action until the end of the academic year".
UCU general secretary Jo Grady said: "If universities want to avoid further disruption they need to send their representatives back to the national negotiating table with solutions 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 starting later this month, we are going to ballot members to ensure that we have a fresh mandate for action until the end of the academic year if these disputes are not resolved."
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.
The University of Glasgow said it would "seek to minimise disruption to our students".
The development comes nearly two weeks after bosses at Scotland’s top ranking universities were described as "out of touch".
University of Edinburgh head Peter Mathieson took home a wage packet of £342,000 during the last academic year.
The UCU said the hefty salaries were "an embarrassment to the sector", while it emerged that student loan debts have tripled.
Anton Muscatelli, principal of the University of Glasgow, earned the second highest in Scotland last year at £298,000 - a relatively modest £10,000 pay rise.
Despite being head of the country’s most prestigious institution, the principal of St Andrews, Sally Mapstone, earned less than her peers, taking home £260,000 last year - a pay rise of £11,000 from the £249,000 she earned between 2017 and 2018.
While other salaries soared, principal of the University of Aberdeen George Boyne took a pay cut. His salarylast year was £250,000 - a £27,000 pay cut from his previous wage of £277,000 in 2018.
A Universities and Colleges Employers' Association spokesman said: “We are dismayed, and many HE institutions will be so too, to see UCU’s HEC [higher education committee] decide to ask the union’s members to once again use damaging strike action over last year’s national pay demands.
"Strike action should always be a last resort and we believe that UCU’s 70,000 members in the 147 institutions should now be given a say.
"There are new ways forward being offered by HE employers - UCEA has made available significant positive proposals on key issues in UCU’s dispute – contractual arrangements, workload / mental health and gender pay gaps / ethnicity pay – developed following two months of talks with UCU.
"Strikes in less than half the universities in the multi-employer negotiations are not the answer and are in real danger of undermining the national collective pay bargaining arrangements.
“UCEA has proactively and formally consulted its members in developing our significant new proposals as we can only move with the consensus of our members. UCU members deserve a chance to have their voices heard as to how they feel about the progress that has been made and whether they want to choose an alternative to further disruptive action."
The full strike dates are:
Week one - Thursday 20 & Friday 21 February;
Week two – Monday 24, Tuesday 25 & Wednesday 26 February;
Week three – Monday 2, Tuesday 3, Wednesday 4 & Thursday 5 March;
Week four - Monday 9, Tuesday 10, Wednesday 11, Thursday 12 & Friday 13 March
Universities affected by strike action:
Both disputes: The University of Aberdeen, The University of Dundee, The University of Edinburgh, The University of Glasgow, Heriot Watt University, The Open University in Scotland, The University of St Andrews, The University of Stirling, The University of Strathclyde.
Pay and Conditions dispute only: Glasgow Caledonian University, Glasgow School of Art, Queen Margaret University
USS pensions dispute only: Scottish Association for Marine Science
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