NEARLY 600 university staff walked out on strike at Cambridge University today demanding a pay supplement to meet the exceptionally high cost of living in the city.
Unite general secretary Sharon Graham joined the picket where library, museum, estates management, student services and IT workers demanded management introduce a “Cambridge weighting.”
They cited other cities where universities has brought in similar supplements such as Oxford where workers received a pensionable weighting of £1,730 per year.
A 2.5 per cent interim payment does currently exist for Cambridge staff, but Unite said this could be removed at any moment and that it does not address the cost of living for those on a low salary.
Ms Graham said: “While its workers are struggling with the city’s sky-high living costs, Cambridge University sits on an ever-growing mountain of wealth worth billions of pounds that it refuses to share.
“Oxford University already has a has local pay supplement now Cambridge University must now do the same.”
‘People up and down the country are asking whose side is the Labour government on and coming up with the answer: not workers,’ Unite general secretary Sharon Graham says
Sharon Graham addresses the Unite policy conference after talks over the Birmingham bin strikes break down
