Cambridge support staff have continued strike action into May in response to the University and Colleges Employers’ Association’s (UCEA) offer of a below inflation pay rise of 1.4%.

The strikes, organised by Unite, call for a “Cambridge weighting,” which is a pay supplement to address the high cost of living in the city, as well as action to mitigate the “wage spine” that has led to salaries being compressed at lower pay grades.

Unite has claimed that “below inflation levels of pay” have led to some staff members using food banks and commuting for miles to get to work, as they can no longer afford to live in the community they work in.

Cambridge support staff have participated in four days of strike action, on 20 and 21 April, and most recently on 30 April and 1 May. The Fitzwilliam Museum and the Whipple Museum were forced to close on these dates. The University Library, alongside some other libraries in Cambridge, operated with reduced services.

On 30 April, the strikers picketed outside the closed Fitzwilliam Museum.

The strike culminated in a demonstration outside the Senate House last Friday (01/05). Strikers included representatives of the National Education Union, Unite Anglia Ruskin, Unite’s Cambridge Health branch and the Unite Cambridge Engineering branch, alongside National Unite representatives.

Cambridge’s only Your Party Councillor, David Baigent, spoke at the demonstration.

Emily Perdue, secretary for the Cambridge branch of Unite and workplace representative for the University Library, said: “our message to the university is that they can’t offer their world-renowned services without us […] we are prepared to cancel the strike dates any time when the University offers us a deal we can take to our members”.

Perdue added that the University’s review into pay increases did not match Unite’s findings. Although the report found that “staff who have been in the same role for the last ten years will have seen an average pay increase of 38.6%, and 41.6% for Assistant staff,” one member of the Unite negotiation team said he calculated that his wage “went up only by 26%”.

Perdue thanked students for their support, and asked members of the public “to sign our petition and respect our picket lines”. Unite also thanked Downing students who provided strikers with cups of tea at the picket line.

Another member of Unite said the University has not been “that constructive,” and has attempted to “tie us up in dialogue”.

He also argued that the current offer was not only “basically a pay cut,” but that it could be taken away at any moment and was not pensionable.

Arsalan Ghani, the Chair of Unite’s Cambridge branch, said that “when [Unite] go to the University [asking] for more pay, they say they don’t have any money,” but that there always seems to be money “for new buildings and the vice-chancellor”. Times Higher Education reported in February that Cambridge vice-chancellor Deborah Prentice earned the second highest base salary last year out of all Russell Group vice-chancellors, at £414,000.

Cambridge University Marxist Society and Cambridge University Labour Club (CULC) were also present at the demonstration on Friday.

A representative for CULC said that “our university is one of the richest institutions in the world – it can pay its workers a fair wage,” and that the society will “always support the people who make our studies possible and their right to strike”.

The Marxist Society announced at the demonstration that they would submit a motion to the Cambridge Students’ Union to mobilise students to support the strikers and raise awareness about the strikes.

Marxist Society member Stevie, who attended the University of Cambridge and now works as a hospitality worker at a Cambridge college, said: “the wage they pay me is not enough to pay back my student loan”.

Stevie also claimed that their daily strike pay of £70 per day was more than their normal daily pay.