UNIVERSITY librarians and catering staff are among those about to receive a pay rise, trade union officials announced yesterday.

Higher education workers represented by Unison have been awarded a 2 per cent increase.

Those previously on lower scales will now be placed on the Living Wage which stands at £7.65 nationally and £8.80 in London.

“I’m pleased that the strike action we took has extracted from the employers a higher pay offer for next year,” said Birkbeck Unison joint branch secretary Steven Ellis.

Mr Ellis told the Star that strikes had been pivotal in the dispute because they smashed “the government’s desire to cap public-sector pay ‘rises’ at 1 per cent.”

Workers in over 150 institutions across Britain are now due to get the rise.

The union’s head of education Jon Richards described the settlement as a “significant milestone” but promised to do more in the coming years.