Aberystwyth University and Penglais School staff are set to strike next week while organisers have appealed for other striking workers to join them.

The town’s University and College Union (UCU) branch has confirmed staff will form a picket line outside the campus next Wednesday morning (1 February).

National Education Union (NEU) members at Penglais School and others will take industrial action the same day.

UCU branch leader Professor John Gough says there will then be a march through Aberystwyth town centre – which he hopes other union members will join.

Commercial Services Union (PCS) affiliates at the Welsh National Library are also expected to strike that day.

Striking workers are set to converge at the bandstand in the town centre at around noon, organisers say.

UCU members will take industrial action for 18 days in total, over a period of seven weeks, if no agreement is found with university bosses in eleventh hour talks today.

The union says that 70,000 UCU members will walk out on strike days and, if it goes ahead, will be the biggest series of strikes ever to hit UK university campuses.

NEU members are campaigning for a fully-funded, above inflation pay rise, after teachers in Wales voted overwhelmingly for strike action.

The union is declaring four days of strike action in February and March in Wales - affecting around 1,500 workplaces in Wales.

Yesterday UCU bosses met with university employer representative the Universities and Colleges Employers Association (UCEA).

The union says it needs employers to substantially improve on the pay offer of 4-5 per cent to avoid disruption. It is demanding a meaningful pay rise for workers during a crippling the cost-of-living crisis as well as action to end the widespread use of insecure contracts.

In the pension dispute, UCU is demanding employers revoke the cuts and restore benefits. The package of cuts made last year will see the average member lose 35 per cent from their guaranteed future retirement income. For those at the beginning of their career, the losses are in the hundreds of thousands of pounds.

UCU will also be reballoting its 70,000 members at the 150 universities in dispute - which includes Aberystwyth, Lampeter and Bangor - to extend the union's mandate and allow staff to take further action through the rest of the academic year.

The reballot campaign will be launched this week.

Aberystwyth University’s UCU branch claims due to redundancies and restructures, remaining staff are being forced into unpaid overtime to pick up the slack.

It also suggested that over half of university teaching staff are on insecure, zero-hour contracts - while the vice-chancellor is paid an exorbitant £250,000 per year.

Following strikes in November last year, a spokesperson for Aberystwyth University said: “The University is fully aware of the financial pressures on staff and students in the current cost of living crisis.

“Pay negotiations and strike ballots have been taking place at a UK level rather than with individual institutions.

“Aberystwyth University awarded most staff a 3 per cent annual pay increase in August 2022, in line with the offer made by the universities’ employers’ association, UCEA, with some staff on lower incomes qualifying for additional increases.

“The pay increase was made in the context of a very tight budgetary situation and significant cost pressures.

“It recognised the need for the University to maintain affordable, sustainable spending plans to protect jobs as well as our teaching and research operations.”

Wales Secretary of the National Education Union Cymru David Evans said: "We have continually raised our concerns with the Education Minister about teacher and support staff pay, and Welsh Government funding of schools, but so far they have not taken steps to resolve the issue.

"Teachers have lost around 20 per cent in real-terms since 2010, and support staff 27 per cent over the same period. The 5 per cent pay rise for teachers this year is some 7 per cent behind inflation. In the midst of a cost-of-living crisis, that is an unsustainable situation.

"Around a quarter of teachers are leaving within their first five years of qualifying. This is a waste of important talent and taxpayers' money, yet the Welsh Government has not acted to ensure the conditions they are allowing in schools support retention.

"The Welsh Government must know there is going to have to be action on teacher pay. They must realise that school support staff need a pay rise.

"If they do not, then the consequences are clear for parents and children. Anyone who values education should support us in this dispute because that is what we are standing up for."