STRIKE-HIT university vice-chancellors threatening to dock the pay of staff conducting a marking boycott should instead give up some of their own wages for failing to table an offer which could end the dispute, the University and College Union (UCU) has demanded. 

Bosses are failing in their duty to protect students by not pushing employer body the Universities and Colleges Employers Association (UCEA) to rethink a below-inflation salary proposal which has already been overwhelmingly rejected by the workforce, it charged.

The union, which launched an ongoing marking and assessment boycott at 145 institutions across Britain last month, urged high-earning vice-chancellors to pool their resources and donate the equivalent of half of their annual salaries to student hardship funds for every day the worsening situation continues.