Around 40 teachers at a Greenwich-based college are protesting against low pay and a proposed increased workload in a series of pickets.

Staff at Greenwich Community College (GCC) have staged the “peaceful protests” at lunchtimes from Wednesday until today (April 25).

They say they are “severely disgruntled” over a proposed cut to their holidays when there has been no pay rise since 2007.

Part-time teacher at GCC Lynne Chamberlain said: “We are all very upset that they want to do this to really hard working teachers.

“It is a peaceful protest to let them know we are severely disgruntled.”

She added they had not ruled out strike action in the future.

University and Colleges Union branch secretary Mark Williams said: “We are protesting over the rapidly-deteriorating terms and conditions at GCC.

"We work for one of the lowest-paid colleges in Greater London and now the management is proposing to introduce even worse terms and conditions on us without any plans for a pay rise.

"We are worried that increasing teachers’ workload will make it more difficult for us to maintain and improve our teaching standards.”

GCC principal Gary Chin said: "We are committed to meeting the needs of our students and providing them with the relevant skills to progress into employment or onto University.

"These changes will enable us to sustain the increased contact time that we have introduced on many courses and will also allow our teaching staff more time to focus on lesson planning and teaching.

"The proposals to reduce annual leave for teaching staff, gives us the opportunity to bring leave entitlement in line with the rest of the sector average and again increase time for planning teaching, learning and assessment activities.

"We have met with union representatives to outline the proposed changes and will continue to consult and collaborate with staff in an open and transparent manner."