Lecturer pay offer 'falls short', says union

A wage connection of 5.5% for Further acquisition (FE) lecturers "falls short" of wage parity with teachers.

That is according to the University and College Union (UCU), 1 of the main unions representing FE lecturers successful Northern Ireland.

Lecturers person been offered a 5.5% emergence for 2024/25 and a 3% emergence successful 2025/26.

The Economy Minister Caoimhe Archibald said the connection provided "a further measurement towards parity with teachers".

In a connection she said that FE was "a captious portion of our economical infrastructure".

"The expertise of our further acquisition lecturers is cardinal to supporting radical execute their imaginable and providing the skills needed for our economy," she said.

The connection said that it was hoped the connection would beryllium accepted.

But the two main unions successful FE already person a mandate from their members to instrumentality onslaught action implicit pay.

Both UCU and NASUWT members person antecedently voted successful favour of onslaught enactment and enactment abbreviated of strike.

And the UCU's Northern Ireland authoritative Katharine Clarke said afloat wage parity with teachers had not been delivered.

A potential onslaught by teachers was averted successful April aft unions accepted a revised wage connection of 5.5% for 2024/25.

"Even with this existent offer, lecturer wage volition stay £2,200 little per annum than schoolteachers," Ms Clarke told BBC News NI.

"The connection made by the employers falls abbreviated connected the committedness of achieving wage parity with schoolteachers, a committedness made by the erstwhile Minister for the Economy, Conor Murphy."

"The UCU is pleased the employers person reaffirmed their tendency to achieving wage parity, but the world is unless Minister Archibald allocates budgets to colleges enabling them to plug the acquisition wage gap, lecturer salaries volition proceed to lag down that of schoolteachers and assemblage lecturers."

"Negotiations are ongoing but UCU is wide that the employers' hands person been tied, and the connection represents breached promises astatine ministerial level."

There are six FE colleges successful Northern Ireland with much than 63,000 students.

They thatch a ample scope of vocational and world subjects to a wide assortment of students, and are a large portion of the acquisition system.