UP to 300 college staff may carry out their decision to hold a two-day strike from Monday, a union official said last night.
Lecturers at Newcastle College are planning to stop work in protest over their employer's threat to sack 128 teachers who refused to sign new contracts.
Negotiations over the new contracts came to a halt in December when members of NATFHE - the university and college lecturers' union - rejected changed working arrangements which they claimed were inferior.
NATFHE regional officer Iain Owens said: ''I hope there will be several hundred members picketing. We have round about 300 members here and they have balloted to strike."
He added in a statement: "Staff at the college are angry and demoralised, but they are determined to safeguard their conditions of service.
"They know these contracts are a recipe for even more stress at work and a declining service for their students.'
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