More than a million students will be hit by three days of strikes on campuses across England, Scotland and Northern Ireland starting on Wednesday, in the latest round of an increasingly bitter dispute in which university leaders have accused leftwingers within the University and College Union (UCU) of blocking progress over a possible deal.

Fifty-eight universities will be affected where staff backed a ballot on strike action called by the UCU, halting lectures and tuition at the country’s largest universities, including the Open University and University College London.

In Greater Manchester alone, more than 100,000 postgraduate and undergraduate students will have their studies disrupted, with strikes taking place at the University of Manchester, Manchester Metropolitan and Salford universities, as well as the Royal Northern College of Music.

The dispute is in part over the management and financing of the University Superannuation Scheme (USS), which provides pensions to the UK’s older universities as well as research institutes and academic thinktanks. The two sides are also battling over low pay and issues such as insecure fixed-term contracts used to employ an increasing number of teaching staff.

In a statement issued on the eve of the strike, Universities UK (UUK) – which represents the employers in the pensions talks – argued that the strike was supported by only a minority of staff, and that the UCU’s leadership was being attacked by leftwingers.

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