Academic staff at the University of York are to strike tomorrow in a claim for more pay.

Lecturers, researchers and other staff who are members of the Association of University Teachers, will be picketing Heslington Hall, King's Manor and other major entrances to university premises from early in the morning.

The union has 500 members at York who are calling for an improvement on a 3.5 per cent pay offer made to them in March by the Universities and Colleges Employers Association - the UCEA.

They say the increase should be nearer to 10 per cent, the claim they made to employers in February, arguing it would close the gap in pay levels between higher education staff and those in comparable professions.

They are also protesting about the number of staff now on short-term contracts.

Vice president of York AUT, Bill Trythall, a history lecturer, said: "It's a national problem but clearly it would be open to individual employers to do something about it themselves.

"We would like the University of York to take steps to reduce the proportion of colleagues employed on short-term contracts.

"This has been going on for so long that it is a case of people feeling fed up and that we've really got to do something about it."

He said the strike was unlikely to affect students seriously as there would not be much teaching going on that day, and it was designed to be more of a demonstration rather than a disruption to the university. Members had received support nationally and locally from the National Union of Students.

Dr Joanne de Groot, president of York AUT, said: "This strike will tell university employers and the Government that the years of pay erosion and exploitation cannot continue." She said academic staff had seen their pay eroded by 36 per cent since 1980, compared with other professional groups.

They had massively increased their productivity, teaching many more students and doing much more research.

And they had seen a steady increase in the proportion of their colleagues paid by the hour or on short fixed-term contracts, so that fewer than half now had open-ended contracts.

The dispute does not involve the College of Ripon and York St John because they are covered by a different salary agreement.

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