LECTURERS will picket all five sites of Burnley College tomorrow.

The University and College Union (UCU) is joining with the National Union of Teachers (NUT) and the Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union in a national day of industrial action over public-sector pay deals.

All of are taking action over pay increase offers of less than 3%, which they say amounts to a pay cut when inflation is around 4%.

But college lecturers say they get a worse deal than school teachers, and are also protesting about lower pay and lack of the allowances given to around half of all school teachers.

Burnley College UCU branch representative, Paul Summerscales said: "Workloads in Further Education have steadily increased over the last five years as Performance Management Systems have been introduced. Consequently productivity has risen significantly as have stress levels.

"Unfortunately pay has not kept up with either cost of living increases nor has it kept up with that of teachers and the 2003 /2005 pay deal designed in part to achieve this parity has not been fully implemented.

"Furthermore at the same time college lecturers have consistently enabled students across every Division of the College to achieve record breaking examination and achievement success."