LECTURERS have voted to strike over pay.
Staff at Sussex Downs College, which has campuses in Eastbourne, Newhaven and Lewes, were part of a nationwide ballot by NATFHE, the University college lecturers' union, whose members voted to walk out on Wednesday.
They are fighting to get the full terms of a pay deal drawn up two years ago, which would improve their salaries by an average of eight per cent.
The rises were seen as a move towards narrowing the estimated ten per cent pay gap between college lecturers and schoolteachers.
Barry Lovejoy, NATFHE's head of colleges, said: "Our members at 13 of these 21 colleges have not rushed into being balloted for industrial action.
"They have been extremely patient and declined to join in our earlier national strike ballot in the mistaken belief that their management would pay them the agreed increases.
"This disruption could very easily be avoided because all NATFHE is asking for is a commitment from college managements to sit down and talk to the union about implementing the new pay scale."
NATFHE said the Government also bore some responsibility for the pay delays.
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