UNIVERSITY staff have begun a ten-day strike over pay and working conditions.

Members of the University and College Union (UCU) at the University of Sussex will join picket lines today in disputes over cuts to pensions, pay and working conditions.

While staff at the University of Brighton plan to strike next week.

Some 68 UK universities will be affected by the walkouts, which are expected to leave millions of students without academic support.

Staff are demanding a £2,500 pay increase as well as action to tackle "unimaginable workloads and pay inequality".

UCU general secretary Jo Grady said: "The action that begins today and will eventually hit 68 universities is down to vice chancellors who have failed staff and students.

"They have pushed through brutal pension cuts and done nothing to address falling pay, pay inequality, the rampant use of insecure contracts and unmanageable workloads.

"Throughout these disputes, our union has offered simple solutions that would avert industrial action and benefit the sector in the long-term, but time and again employers have chosen to continue pushing staff to breaking point, all whilst the sector continues to bring in tens of billions of pounds each year.

"To avoid this period of industrial action all vice chancellors had to do was accept UCU’s viable pension proposals and take action over worsening pay and working conditions. That they didn’t is an abject failure of their leadership.

"Students are standing by our members because they know that staff working conditions are their learning conditions.

"And they know that this sector, which is awash with money, can afford to treat its staff with dignity. As ten days of action begins today vice-chancellors need to urgently get around the table and help UCU resolve these disputes."

Furious universities disrupted by the strike action warned they would cut staff pay by up to 100 per cent if they carried out “action short of a strike”.

Some universities have said they would make what the union described as “arbitrary and punitive” pay deductions, allegedly ranging from 25 per cent to 100 per cent for staff who continue to work during the strike but take action short of a strike.

This can include not covering for absent colleagues, marking boycotts or refusing to take part in voluntary activities.

Raj Jethwa, chief executive of UCEA (Universities and Colleges Employers Association), which represents 146 employers in pay negotiations, said the decision to cut pay for staff carrying out action short of a strike was a “direct recommendation” from his organisation to employers.

“Employers are completely within their rights to withhold pay for partial performance – they do not have to accept partial performance,” he said.

“When an employee decides to pick and choose what they do it can have a disruptive impact.”