Universities in Tayside and Fife will be hit by eight days of strike action following disputes over a number of issues including pay, pensions and accusations of inequality.
Members of the University and College Union (UCU) at Dundee and St Andrews Universities will walk out from November 25 until December 4.
They will be among 12 Scottish universities and 48 others across the UK to take part in the industrial action.
These centre on changes to the Universities’ Superannuation Scheme (USS) and claims about a failure to improve pay, gender and race pay equality, casualisation and workloads.
Dr Carlo Morelli, UCA Scotland president and senior lecturer at Dundee University, said: “The university has a gender and race pay gap and lack of representation of black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) and disabled staff, which is unacceptable and has not been addressed.
“Members are not prepared to accept the poor pay, poor conditions of work and inequality.
“These disputes need to be resolved otherwise they will escalate into strike action.
“The problem is universities don’t even recognise these problems need to be addressed so there needs to be a major change.”
Last week members backed the action in ballots over both pensions and pay and working conditions, with turnouts in Scotland of 56.9% and 56.5% on the respective issues.
More than three-quarters (78%) backed the industrial action over USS changes, while 73% were in favour of strikes in the other dispute.
UCU Scotland official Mary Senior said: “This first waves of strikes will hit universities later this month unless the employers sit down and start talking seriously about how they will deal with declining pay and conditions and increasing pension costs.
“Universities should be in no doubt about the level of anger across university campuses on these issues.”
Members will also begin “action short of a strike” when they return to work after the walkout, although it is not yet clear what this will be.
A Dundee University spokesman said: “We are disappointed that the UCU union have chosen a course of strike action.
“This is a national issue and we, like fellow universities across the UK, remain hopeful a solution can be found to the USS pension issue that is sustainable, affordable for both employee and employer, meaningful in terms of providing a dignified retirement income and understandable, and can be agreed by all sides.
“Industrial action will have inevitable consequences for students although we will do everything we can to mitigate the effects and ensure there is as little disruption to their studies as possible.
“The strike dates do not coincide with the main examination timetable, which we expect to proceed as normal later in December.”
