University staff are sick of bearing the brunt of COVID-19 costs, as an estimated 7000 tertiary staff members from universities across the country prepare to strike.
Union members, which range from academics to support staff are striking for an eight percent pay increase to match the rising cost of living.
Tertiary Education Union said they can't forever take on the cost of COVID's destruction and need to be able to pay their bills.
Te Hautū Kahurangi Tertiary Education Union members, along with colleagues from PSA and E Tū, overwhelmingly voted to strike at all eight of the country's universities.
Collective agreement negotiations have been ongoing separately at each of the universities - University of Auckland, AUT, University of Waikato, Massey University, Victoria University of Wellington, Canterbury University, Lincoln University and University of Otago - since July.
In an online ballot, 87 percent voted for strike action which aims for employers to come back with a better offer.
Victoria University senior English lecturer Dougal McNeill said employees from "both ends of the spectrum" are striking.
There are staff members who are on living wage and struggling to keep up with the rising cost of living and on the other end, professionals on higher salaries given all their work they shouldn't be asked to take a pay cut, he said.
In a statement, McNeill said the need for online learning due to COVID restrictions had effectively doubled already "unmanageable workloads" caused by persistent cost cutting and underinvestment in staff.
Tertiary Education Union national secretary Sandra Gray told AM they want the universities to invest in their staff.
"All we are saying to our employers is to invest in your staff, look after them and make sure they can pay their bills so they can come to work and do their jobs well. It's not a big ask."
The pay discussions come off the back of two years of the COVID-19 pandemic, where workers in the tertiary sector had the lowest pay increases of any sector, Gray said.
"We actually said to employers we understand COVID's hard on the universities and on the polytechnics and we did our bit. But we can't forever bear the cost of either underfunding or COVID restrictions," Gray said. "It's time to actually let us be able to cope with our lives, pay our bills and get on with the work we do."
A recent report by economic research agency Business and Economic Research Ltd, commissioned by the TEU, found staffing costs from 2008 to 2020 only increased by seven percent, while the total operating revenue grew 25 percent, with student revenue up a huge 45 percent.
"There's nothing in the university books that says they can't afford to invest in staff, they look pretty healthy," Gray said.
"The point is there is no university, there is no teaching, there's no libraries, there's no labs without people like Dougall and his colleagues. You have got to look after them so they stay and do the good job that they've been doing for years."
Details of the strike are being finalised but it is planned to happen later this week.
