GRIMSBY Institute staff will begin industrial action in an ongoing dispute over job losses and changes to their terms and conditions.
The University and College Union (UCU) said seven days' notice that its members will commence "action short of a strike" is in the process of being served.
This will see them "work to rule" by refusing to cover lessons or work outside of their contracted hours.
The Institute is proposing to get rid of 17.4 full-time equivalent posts, affecting 19 people in Grimsby, and teachers will be expected to work an extra 40 hours a year – up from an average of 828 hours over 36 weeks.
It had initially expected to make 33 compulsory redundancies, but said this number had been reduced through a number of measures including redeployment and voluntary redundancies.
The UCU had called on the Institute to rescind the 19 redundancy notices issues to staff in Grimsby – as well as the seven issued to staff at the Institute-run Yorkshire Coast College in Scarborough.
But that request was rejected and so the union is pressing ahead with this latest round of action, which follows a strike held in July.
John Giddins, regional organiser at the UCU, said: "Work to rule has not been cancelled. "The college is right that we need seven days' notice. "Once that seven days' notice has been served it will start. We have to comply with trade union legislation. "We have e-mailed our members to tell them to wait until we tell them to go ahead. "Once we have the legal advice we need the notice will be served. "We can't put our members in a position where they can be docked a full day's pay. "We are also not ruling out further strike action in the future. "Teachers should not have to dig the college out of a hole that management have created by making redundancies before they even know how many students enrol on courses.
"We are still in disputes over job losses and changes to contracts that the college is trying to force on staff which will see them work longer hours for less money."
Staff have also complained to the Grimsby Telegraph that the college is relying heavily on agency staff because too many teaching posts are empty.
A Freedom of Information request submitted by the UCU revealed that 159 of the Institute's 1,370 staff are employed on controversial zero-hour contracts – 123 at Grimsby and 36 at Scarborough.
Staff on zero-hour contracts are employed by the Institute but no number of hours is specified, and they are paid only for the hours they work.
Mr Giddins said: "These contracts mean no commitment from the employer, no job security and for some, no money coming in at the end of the month.
"Students benefit from a relationship with their teachers but zero- hour contracts mean short-term cover, so teachers don't get the chance to develop a good working knowledge of their classes and students."
Meanwhile, the Institute confirmed that posts for seven programme leaders (three on fixed-term contracts) and 2.5 learning practitioners remained unfilled.
It also revealed that in the six months from February it spent £228,146 on agency staff – an average of £38,024 a month.
However, it said that when the restructure commenced in June, it began terminating agency staff arrangements, resulting in a significant reduction in the monthly spend from £85,464 in February to £4,977 in July.
A spokesman for the Institute said: "It is important for us to maintain a number of staff on zero- hours contracts because we need to ensure our continuing flexibility when dealing with the high volume of students we are dealing with.
"It is necessary that we make the most of the specialisms of our staff and we aim to make sure that, where possible, current vacancies are filled by members of staff who are at risk of compulsory redundancy.
"If we do not have the specialisms internally then we will recruit externally."
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