Ongoing battle to protect pay and conditions at Barnsley college
Alistair Tice
Around 160 Barnsley College teaching staff, members of the UCU union, have just taken another three days of strike action (Thursday 29 and Friday 30 January and Monday 2 February) in their dispute against the imposition of a new un-agreed contract.
This follows a three-day strike in the autumn term after Colin Booth, the college principal, refused to negotiate about the new contract which contains detrimental changes to pay and conditions affecting all new appointments and existing staff who undergo “re-structuring” in the summer.
The strike action, and the threat of escalating to four-day and five-day strikes in February and March, has forced some concessions from the principal but not yet on the substantive issues such as the downbanding of course leaders, cuts in holidays, and performance-related pay.
This is the fourth dispute at Barnsley College since Booth’s appointment as principal six years ago, since which he has sought to cut jobs and the teaching staff budget. This is to make up for cuts in government funding to Further Education and to pay down the debts on seemingly endless building projects. This empire building has now stretched to a contract in China!
Booth was recently awarded an OBE – one picket suggested that this was the “Order of the Barnsley Empire”, another said it was for “other buggers’ efforts”. Either way, the senior management team pay bill is over £1 million a year with Booth himself pocketing £142,000 of it.
One striker said: “I’ve got another 25 years ahead of me so I’m fighting for my future pay and conditions. If we don’t stop these cuts in Barnsley, they will start happening at every college”.
This version of this article was first posted on the Socialist Party website on 2 February 2015 and may vary slightly from the version subsequently printed in The Socialist.